Security is the biggest risk associated with adoption of mobile application to deliver government services. According to Arxan technology report, 90% of apps surveyed had at least 2 major security risks. Furthermore at least 50% of business don’t allocate a separate budget for mobile apps security (“10 Biggest Risks to Mobile Apps Security”, 2018). It was only a matter of time, but it looks like mobile applications are now sufficiently ubiquitous to attract the serious attention of cyber criminals. While this means a treat for the hackers, it can be a huge risk for businesses. Some of the few most common types of mobile vulnerabilities include lack of binary protections, insufficient transport layer protection, unintended data leakage, improper session handling, and many other things that could cause severe damage to the federal government.

In order for the government to keep up with the rapid development, The White House Digital Government strategy requires federal agencies to adopt mobile technology to improve services to the citizens. The Digital Government Strategy was developed to provide agencies with guidance on improving digital services and to enable the government to thrive within the fast-paced, ever-changing world of technology. Designing for openness from the start and making open data the default for government IT systems and embracing the use of web applications. In turn this will enable government to more easily deliver information and services through multiple channels, including mobile, and engage the public and America’s entrepreneurs as partners in building a better government (“Digital Strategy | CIO.gov”, 2019).

In keeping with the White House’s digital government initiatives, senior government technologists increasingly look to a mobile-first strategy for developing digital content and services. The mobilization of government content comes as a corollary to agencies’ efforts to integrate mobile strategies within the federal workforce. These efforts challenge CIOs with an array of issues familiar to their counterparts in the private sector, including BYOD and developing mobile device management policies (Corbin, 2018). On the content side, the GSA has set up the Federal Government Mobile Apps Directory , offering more than 200 agency applications that can be filtered by platform. Increasingly, agencies channel their resources into developing specialized mobile apps, rather than the more general production of mobile Web content.

There’s no better time than the present for federal agencies to streamline mission-related functions and add efficiency with mobile technology and applications. There are a tremendous number of mobile app security assessment solutions that are currently available to help them identify, mitigate and quantify risk in their mobile apps (Hylton, 2016). Responsibility for ongoing monitoring for cyber threats and vulnerabilities will be consolidated within the Department of Homeland Security.