Continuous Deployment, Continuous Risk: Why DevSecOps Must Go Mobile

According to Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile Apps 2025 report, smartphone users spend an average of 3.5 hours daily on their devices and use up to 26 unique apps every month. As mobile applications become increasingly vital to our daily lives, the speed at which they’re developed and deployed has dramatically increased. Recent research shows that apps are released, on average, every 50 days. To keep pace with such velocity, developers are constantly updating their code, even daily, using continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.

However, this speed often comes with a cost. When security isn’t embedded early and consistently, these pipelines can introduce continuous risk, exposing mobile apps to threats long after deployment. DevSecOps, the practice of integrating security into every phase of development, is part of the antidote. But in mobile app development, DevSecOps is often not applied. While the majority of organizations believe they understand the risks of releasing unprotected mobile apps, 67% believe that using OS-level security is sufficient to ensure secure mobile apps, a misconception that can leave applications vulnerable to threats like reverse engineering and tampering.

There are multiple reasons mobile apps are released despite security issues: a lack of mobile app security expertise within organizations and conflicting priorities between time to market, performance, user experience, and mobile app security. However, OS-level security features are primarily designed to safeguard end-user privacy and device integrity, not to protect the application's proprietary code, business logic, and sensitive data passing through the app.

The rise (and lag) of DevSecOps in mobile app development

Despite the growing maturity of DevSecOps practices, mobile application development continues to lag behind web and desktop apps when it comes to embedding mobile app security across the entire development lifecycle and using mobile-specific tools. According to Gartner’s 2024 Hype Cycle for Application Security, while the use of mobile application security testing (MAST) is moving through the 'Slope of Enlightenment,' meaning that the technology’s value to enterprises is becoming clearer with more concrete use cases and benefits being recognized across the industry, many organizations remain stuck with outdated or fragmented approaches.

Many mobile apps are still not tested adequately, and mobile app code often bypasses automated application security testing within the DevOps pipeline. Furthermore, only 33% of organizations apply mobile app protection measures beyond basic OS-level security, leaving significant vulnerabilities exposed. Compounding this gap, mobile threat monitoring is rarely integrated, limiting visibility into active risks once apps are in the market.

These gaps highlight an urgent need for mobile-first DevSecOps strategies that fully encompass security testing, protection, and threat monitoring. Why does mobile require a different approach? Because the mobile ecosystem introduces challenges that traditional security tools weren’t built to address.

Unique security challenges in mobile apps

Here are just a few of the mobile-specific risks DevSecOps needs to address while automating developer tools to speed up releases while maintaining high code quality and security.

Client-side attacks

Unlike web apps, mobile apps ship code to untrusted environments, outside the control of app publishers. This makes them vulnerable to man-at-the-end attacks, such as reverse engineering and tampering.

Device fragmentation

With thousands of device models and OS variations across Android in particular (and to some extent with iOS), enforcing consistent security is an incredibly complex undertaking.

Delayed updates

Even with push notifications and app store mechanisms, many users put off updating their apps. This leaves known vulnerabilities in circulation, sometimes for weeks or months.

Lack of visibility

Unlike server-side environments, mobile lacks built-in tools for runtime monitoring. That means many attacks go undetected.

These risks make a compelling case for embedding multilayered, mobile-first security solutions directly into the development lifecycle, not as a single checkpoint, but as a continuous practice.

The business imperative for mobile DevSecOps

Deprioritizing mobile app security isn’t just a technical issue; it’s a business risk. Consequences can include:

Financial losses

Data breaches involving mobile apps cost an average of $4.97 million per incident, according to research conducted by Vanson Bourne.

Regulatory exposure

In heavily regulated industries like healthcare and finance, insufficient mobile app security can lead to audits, fines, and operational disruptions.

Reputation damage

Mobile users have high expectations. A single security incident can cause churn, negative media coverage, and long-term brand damage due to service downtime, loss of IP, and/or exposure of private customer information. (source: Statista)

By embedding security into all phases of the mobile application lifecycle, organizations can reduce these risks while maintaining speed, flexibility, and innovation within a true DevSecOps environment.

Integrating mobile app security into the CI/CD Pipeline

A mobile-first DevSecOps approach requires security to be part of every step, from concept to writing the first line of code to shipping the final build, and beyond. Here’s how:

Mobile application security testing (MAST)

MAST helps developers identify potential problems in their mobile applications. This can be done manually or through the use of automated tools using different types of code analysis.

Static application security testing (SAST) scans source code before it’s committed, flagging security flaws that could generate one or more of the top 10 mobile app risks highlighted by OWASP. This allows developers to fix issues before they’re embedded in production builds and further exploited in the wild.

Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools analyze the behavior of a running app, typically in a test environment, to uncover runtime vulnerabilities such as API misconfigurations or exposed data. This simulates real-world use cases to uncover vulnerabilities hidden in live flows.

Interactive testing (IAST) is another type of dynamic analysis, where the application is instrumented, allowing for a more detailed assessment of the app as it runs. As such, IAST tools can help validate third-party libraries and other dependencies.

While some teams use MAST tools, many rely on tools inherited from desktop or web environments. These tools often fail to address mobile-specific threats. MAST products, like AppSweep by Guardsquare, are purpose-built for mobile, understand Android and iOS platform-specific aspects, and detect issues that generic scanners overlook, providing recommendations to developers to solve those issues.

Application protection

Mobile application publishers need protections against threats like reverse engineering and tampering attacks.

Code hardening uses layers of different obfuscation and encryption techniques to protect applications from being analyzed, reverse-engineered, and/or modified by malicious actors in the wild.

Runtime application self protection (RASP) monitors both the app itself as well as the environment it’s running in (such as a jailbroken/rooted device) to ensure continuous code integrity in production.

DexGuard (Android) and iXGuard (iOS) both employ multilayered code hardening protections as well as automated RASP capabilities to repel tampering attacks post-release.

API integrity

Development organizations need to ensure that only a legitimate mobile app front-end can interact with backend servers–and not a malicious bot, script, or cloned application.

App attestation can verify that only a legitimate application is interacting with APIs and prevent all non-genuine connection points.

The robust app attestation solution uses cryptographically signed tokens to guarantee that the front-end app interacting with your APIs at runtime can be trusted as authentic.

Threat monitoring

Normal use of any mobile application will include constant exposure to new sophisticated threats that will look for any opportunity to exploit the integrity of your code.

Real-time threat monitoring gives DevSecOps teams a live view that continuously observes their mobile applications within an ever-evolving threat landscape. Analyzing threat data helps developers understand how threat actors are attempting to compromise their apps.

ThreatCast provides real-time threat detection insights that help spot and isolate suspicious users or adjust security controls in version updates and future releases.

Conclusion

As mobile continues to dominate the digital experience, mobile app security must evolve to keep up. Relying on traditional security reviews at the end of development or pentesting is no longer enough. DevSecOps is the path forward, but only if it’s mobile-first.

Security teams and mobile app developers have an opportunity to lead this shift by advocating for mobile-specific tools that embed security testing into CI/CD pipelines to continuously improve the security posture of their apps throughout their useful lifespan.

Connect with an expert at Guardsquare to learn more about embedding mobile app security into development pipelines.