Application architecture
These days there are three ways to write an application: native, mobile web, and hybrid.
A native application is specific to a platform and is written in a language that is native to the platform. These applications use native tools and SDKs that are provided by the operating system manufacturer. These applications have much better performance and can use native features and APIs for secure data storage. The following figure illustrates how native and hybrid applications work:
A mobile web application is written with web technologies, such as HTML5, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and ASP.net. These applications are cross-platform and once they are written they can be run on any platform that has a browser. They provide the ease of centralized updates but inherit all the browser vulnerabilities. Be aware of the browser exploits when you write a mobile web application. Browser code is easily available for everyone to see. Also, URL exploits are a risk in such applications, as...