SECURITY CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL FOR MOBILE APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Trend towards use of mobile applications (apps) is increasing resoundingly. Mobile app vendors extend their outreach taking the services to common man. As the technology is evolving at breakneck speed, the threat of unimaginable level of unauthorized activities done by hackers is also increasing. We don't know how secure the apps are?  Thus, there is need for organizations to continuously measure their security control domains. In this context, security metrics and standards plays a vital and key role in security management systems. As of our present knowledge, there is no model yet, which can determine security score in particular for mobile apps. To improve the security performance, authors in this work suggested a framework named as Mobile App Security Capability Maturity Model (MASCMM). MASCMM is a 4-step GAME (Goals, Actions, Metrics, Evaluations) process. In the model, 321 Security metrics are defined based on GAP-GOES criteria covering 32 security control domains. By using our proposed framework, organizations can calculate security score and maturity level of each security activity, security control family and also of applications.