Static Security Analysis of Government and Non-Government Android Mobile Applications in Malaysia: A Comparative Study Using MobSF and OWASP Mobile Top 10

In the current era, mobile phones have become a priority in everybody's life as they are commonly used for communication, business purposes, and other important reasons. Mobile applications are software created to run on a mobile device, and they have become part of our day-to-day lives that many things can be accomplished such as shopping, social networking, banking, and gaming, among others. Since mobile applications deal with sensitive and confidential information that could be misused by malicious agents, security in mobile applications is a crucial issue that must be tackled. In this context, we have performed a static security analysis using a well-known and recognized tool called MobSF Security Framework on Malaysian government and non-government Android mobile applications. This study’s novelty is the static analysis to compare the security statuses of both categories of mobile applications based on OWASP Mobile Top 10 and the tools’ scoring system. The most common vulnerabilities for both government and non-government mobile applications were identified based on OWASP Mobile Top 10 and security recommendations for each domain were discussed. On the other hand, scoring results from MobSF Security Score identified the safest and the least safe mobile applications among the tested applications.