Latest Singapore security survey adds the consumer voice; challenging brands to do more to protect end users from AI & social engineering attacks while supporting industry standards like OWASP.
SINGAPORE, Singapore – (Oct 1, 2024) – Appdome, the one-stop shop for mobile app defense, today announced the results of its 4th Annual Singapore Consumer Survey of Mobile App Security here at the OWASP AppSec Days Singapore The survey reveals that mobile end users are keenly aware of the growing security, fraud, and privacy threats when they use mobile apps and demand that mobile brands and enterprises step forward to provide real defenses to these threats. The survey reveals that Singaporeans are particularly concerned about mobile fraud, social engineering, and on-device threats.
To create the 2024 survey, Appdome partnered with the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). The voice of the Singaporean consumer was clear – not only do they demand the protections included in the OWASP MAS standard, but the survey data reveals a challenge to the entire mobile industry in Singapore to improve the state of the art of mobile app protection.
The 2024 Singapore survey data adds to the 120,000+ consumer voices gathered from 12 countries over the past four years, making the Appdome Global Consumer Survey the largest single collection of consumer data on mobile app security, privacy, anti-fraud, and other attack vectors. Mobile applications have taken center stage in consumers’ daily life. Mobile app protection – consisting of mobile app security, malware defense, fraud prevention, and privacy – is now critical to the way consumers choose and use mobile apps, and also critical in whether they choose to stay with and promote a brand.
“Cyber professionals work tirelessly to keep applications, networks, transactions, and users safe while Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other attacks increase,” said Tom Tovar, co-creator and CEO of Appdome. “Consumers in Singapore continue their march upward in recognizing the importance of this work and it’s clear that they overwhelmingly support a broadening cyber, anti-fraud, anti-malware, anti-bot mandate, and higher OWASP standard, inside brand and enterprise mobile apps everywhere.”
Several upward trends are revealed in the 2024 data, including consumers’ use of mobile apps, their awareness of mobile attack vectors, the growing expectation of protection in apps and consumers’ willingness to be brand advocates if protected. Here are some of the cyber expectations in mobile apps that hit all-time highs in the 2024 Survey:
- Mobile vs. Web: 57.5% of Singapore consumers say they use mobile applications more than web, dwarfing preference for online/web at 17.2%. Furthermore, 68.7% say that their use of mobile apps has increased over the last 12 months and 70.2% use more than 5 apps on average per week.
- Total Mobile Protection: 97.7% of Singaporeans demand total protection in mobile apps including mobile app data, account integrity, login, data storage, data in transit, and protection from malware and fraud.
- Fraud, Malware and Social Engineering Scams: 49.9% of Singapore consumers fear mobile fraud and 40.0% fear on-device malware. 38.4% said that they or someone close to them has experienced cyber-attacks, mobile malware or mobile fraud. Similar experiences for social engineering scams at 32.7%.
- Fraud Prevention: 80.7% —the highest level ever— of Singaporeans demand brands proactively prevent mobile fraud from happening rather than reimburse them post-fraud.
- Features vs. Security: 85.4% of consumers in Singapore say that mobile app protection is equally or more important than mobile app features in their decision to use a mobile app, with 87.7% saying they evaluate the security claims of the brand before downloading a mobile app.
- Frustrated with Inaction: 22.4 % of Singapore consumers fear “developers don’t care” about protecting the mobile app.
Mobile consumers maintained strong perspectives on these top trends in the 2024 survey:
- Rewarding Secure Brands: 95.6% —the highest level ever— of respondents state they will become brand advocates for mobile brands that protect their apps and use. Almost half (47.7%%) said they would use the highest forms of advocacy, such as app store reviews or social media endorsements.
- Consequences for Insecure Apps: 69.5% —the highest level ever— of respondents state they would abandon a mobile brand for failing to protect their app and use.
“It’s clear that consumers are taking mobile brand promises and the emerging threat of AI attacks seriously,” said Alan Bavosa, VP of Security Products at Appdome. “AI-based attacks will take mobile app risks to a new level, and mobile brands and enterprises need to change their cyber delivery models to meet the accelerating threat head on and maintain user trust and engagement on mobile platforms.”
To obtain Appdome’s 4th Annual “Philippines Consumer Expectations of Mobile App Security Survey,” please visit the Appdome Consumer Expectations on Mobile App Security survey page.
About Appdome
Appdome is the experience leader in mobile defense. Our award-winning, and patented, mobile defense platform uses AI-ML to automate the work and complexity out of securing mobile businesses, apps and users. With Appdome, mobile brands and enterprises enjoy a single pane of glass to create Certified Secure™ mobile apps with ease, eliminating multiple point products and SDKs, and unifying mobile app security, anti-fraud, anti-bot, anti-malware, geo compliance, social engineering and other defenses with real time threat monitoring, mobile EDR, XDR, and IR for external-consumer and internal-employee facing mobile apps. At 340+ mobile app defense features and growing, Appdome provides the most comprehensive and extensible mobile defense solution on the market. The platform is fully automated out of the box using pre-built plugins to the full DevOps, CI/CD and Enterprise automation and support stack. Appdome also leads the market in user experience and support, with its industry leading, in-app, Threat-Events™ threat intelligence framework and GenAI powered Threat Resolution Center™. These, combined with a host of enterprise grade and compliance features built into the platform, allow all stakeholders, including mobile engineering, cyber teams, network security, DevOps, SecOps, IT, UEM-MAM, mobile support teams, and mobile end users to benefit from using Appdome. Appdome holds several patents including U.S. Patents 9,934,017 B2, 10,310,870 B2, 10,606,582 B2, 11,243,748 B2 and 11,294,663 B2. Additional patents pending.
