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Addressing Emerging Threats to Mobile Payments: Securing Ecommerce Through SDK Protection

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The rapid adoption of mobile apps has led to a similar boom in mobile commerce, leading mobile brands to quickly adopt payment Software Development Kits (SDKs) to add functionality quickly and efficiently. However, this reliance on SDKs also introduces significant security risks. Malicious actors are increasingly targeting the SDKs responsible for handling sensitive financial information, especially in the context of mobile payments.

As mobile commerce increases, so do cyberattacks. Tactics like payment fraud, social engineering and even deepfake-related fraud are becoming common methods for exploiting vulnerabilities in SDKs. Ensuring that SDKs, particularly those that handle mobile payments, are secure is crucial to protecting transaction data, maintaining regulatory compliance and delivering a seamless user experience.

The Growing Threats to Mobile Payment SDKs

Payment SDKs manage highly sensitive data, including credit card numbers, personal user information and transaction details. Attackers often aim to exploit these SDKs through methods like “man-in-the-middle” attacks, where they intercept communications between the SDK and payment gateway, or “injection” attacks, which involve inserting malicious code to alter how the SDK processes transactions.

This evolution in attack techniques is driven by the growing complexity of payment systems and the increasing use of mobile commerce. Payment fraud — such as unauthorized transactions or compromised payment credentials — can result in significant financial loss and reputational damage for ecommerce companies. Worse, these breaches can lead to widespread identity theft and data compromise if the attack remains undetected for a prolonged period.

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Safeguarding Transactions: Visa and EMVCo Payment Standards

To combat the risks posed by insecure payment SDKs, ecommerce companies must align their practices with well-regarded commerce standards.

Visa sets global standards to ensure that sensitive cardholder data is protected during online and mobile payments. These standards require merchants to use technologies like end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and tokenization to protect payment data during transactions. It also specifies that obfuscation, tampering protection, jailbreak/root protection, real-time monitoring and more be used for mobile app transactions. Additionally, Visa mandates compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a framework that ensures businesses securely handle, store and transmit sensitive payment information.

EMVCo, a consortium of major payment networks, sets the standards for secure, interoperable payment technologies, including EMV chip cards and mobile payment frameworks. EMVCo’s guidelines cover tokenization, 3D Secure authentication and other protocols designed to safeguard payment data in mobile environments. These standards are critical for ecommerce brands because they offer enhanced protection against fraudulent transactions, ensuring that sensitive data is protected from the moment a transaction is initiated until it is completed.

By adhering to Visa and EMVCo standards, ecommerce companies can protect the flow of payment data within their SDKs, significantly reducing the risk of fraud.

Embedding Security into SDKs: A Layered Protection Strategy

To protect mobile payment systems from the increasing number of attacks, ecommerce brands must embed advanced security mechanisms directly into their SDKs. This proactive approach ensures that security is integral to every layer of the mobile payment process, preventing fraud and data breaches in real time. Protection methods include:

  • Real-time threat detection and response: By embedding security mechanisms directly into SDKs, ecommerce brands can continuously monitor for suspicious activities, such as unauthorized attempts to modify transaction data or intercept sensitive information. These tools can instantly detect abnormal behaviors and neutralize threats before they cause harm. For example, in the case of man-in-the-middle attacks, embedded security tools can detect unauthorized access attempts and block the attacker from intercepting the data. This real-time capability ensures that payment transactions are always secure and prevents fraud before it impacts the user or the business;
  • Encryption and data integrity: Securing payment data is crucial, both in transit and at rest (that is, when it is not being actively transmitted or used). Data encryption ensures that even if a hacker intercepts the data, it is unreadable and unusable without the appropriate decryption key. End-to-end encryption within the SDK ensures that sensitive information, such as credit card details, is protected from the moment it is input by the user until it reaches the payment gateway; and
  • Obfuscation and anti-tampering protection: Additionally, SDKs need to protect code and application logic as well as include data integrity checks to ensure that the SDK code has not been tampered with. This is essential because attackers often attempt to modify the code to alter how payment information is processed. Integrity checks prevent this, ensuring that the SDK operates exactly as intended.

By embedding advanced security measures directly into their payment SDKs, ecommerce companies can automate compliance processes. Encryption, access control and data retention policies can be enforced automatically, ensuring that sensitive information is protected according to regulatory requirements. This automation not only mitigates the risk of non-compliance but also reduces the operational burden on development and security teams.

Maintaining a Seamless User Experience

Security is critical to protecting transactions, but it cannot come at the cost of a smooth user experience. Payment friction — such as slow load times, complicated verification processes or technical errors — can lead to cart abandonment, which directly affects revenue.

By embedding security mechanisms that operate in the background, ecommerce companies can protect transactions without disrupting the user experience. These embedded security tools continuously protect against threats without requiring additional steps from the user, ensuring that the payment process remains fast, efficient and secure.

This balance between security and user experience is critical to building trust with customers. When users know that their payment information is protected, they are more likely to complete transactions and remain loyal to the platform.

The Long-Term Benefits of SDK Protection

SDK protection is no longer optional; it is a necessity for any ecommerce brand that wants to safeguard its mobile payment systems, protect its users and maintain compliance with regulatory standards. By embedding security directly into SDKs, ecommerce brands can:

  • Neutralize threats in real time: Embedded security tools offer continuous protection against evolving threats, reducing the window of vulnerability;
  • Ensure regulatory compliance: Automated compliance features make it easier for businesses to meet the stringent requirements of PCI DSS, GDPR and other data protection regulations; and
  • Enhance data integrity: Through encryption and integrity checks, ecommerce platforms can ensure that sensitive payment data is protected from end to end, preventing breaches and data leaks.

By implementing real-time threat detection, automated compliance and end-to-end encryption within their payment SDKs, ecommerce companies can protect their users from an increasingly sophisticated range of threats. This proactive approach not only ensures transaction security but also preserves the seamless user experience that customers expect from modern ecommerce platforms.

A no-code, automated platform designed to secure mobile SDKs offers benefits for developers looking to safeguard mobile retail transactions in the rapidly growing mobile app economy. By eliminating the need for manual coding, developers can quickly integrate advanced security features like encryption, data integrity checks and real-time threat detection directly into their SDKs without altering the underlying SDK code. This streamlines the development process, ensuring that security is embedded from the ground up, all while maintaining compliance with industry standards.


Chris Roeckl is Appdome’s Chief Product Officer, focused on providing excellent experiences for cybersecurity and DevOps teams using the Appdome product. Since joining Appdome in 2016, Roeckl has led the company’s customer, sales, business development and marketing teams. Previously, he held senior management positions at Silicon Valley companies including Pulse Secure (acquired by Ivanti), AirMagnet (acquired by Danaher), Fortinet, Infoblox and NetScreen Technologies (acquired by Juniper Networks). Early in his career, Roeckl was an industry analyst and editor for CommunicationWeek, a leading networking trade publication.

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