Security a top concern for mobile cloud-based applications

48 percent of a Vordel study respondents noted security as a top concern for connecting from mobile cloud-based applications into the organization.

The security challenges included the question of how to protect a mobile application itself from reverse-engineering, how to protect the web services used by the mobile application, and how to deter users from installing malicious mobile applications placed in app markets (such as the Android Market) by attackers.

Additionally, 26 percent of respondents felt that integration complexities were a challenge. This is to be expected as programming for mobile apps uses such lightweight protocols as REST and JSON, whilst the enterprise application development environment is characterized by enterprise applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft .NET, which tend to support heavyweight standards such as SOAP, rather than REST and JSON.

Other interesting data gleaned indicates that 53 percent of organizations are currently deploying mobile applications to customers with 47 percent deploying applications to employees and 24 percent deploying to partners.

Of note, 29 percent said they were planning to deploy mobile applications, but had not done so at this time. Additionally, 18 percent did not have any current deployment plans.

These survey results were based on a sample pool of 78 respondents from 50 organizations (Fortune 5000 firms and Government Agencies). The typical respondents were Enterprise Architects, Senior IT Manager and Chief Security Officers.