Raising the Bar for Mobile Security: Reflections on 2025 and What 2026 Demands of Us

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s worth pausing, not to slow down, but to reflect on how rapidly the mobile security landscape is evolving and what that evolution now demands from all of us.

This year reinforced something we have long believed at Appknox: security can no longer be an isolated activity or a late-stage control. As mobile applications become more interconnected, AI-enabled, and globally distributed, security must operate continuously and at scale, without slowing teams down.

What changed in 2025 is not just the volume of mobile applications or the sophistication of threats. What changed is the expectation. Security teams are no longer asked to simply find vulnerabilities. They are expected to deliver confidence consistently, measurably, and at speed.

Key takeaways

• Mobile security is shifting from periodic testing to continuous, embedded assurance
• Speed in detection and prioritization is now a baseline requirement, not a differentiator
• Foundational security issues still dominate at scale, despite increased tooling
• AI-native security platforms are becoming essential to manage modern mobile complexity
• 2026 will demand security systems that think and adapt, not just automate

What changed in mobile security in 2025

• Mobile applications became more interconnected and API-driven
• AI and ML components entered the mobile supply chain at scale
• Release cycles accelerated beyond what manual security could support
• Security teams were expected to provide continuous assurance, not point-in-time validation

2025 in review: Security at real-world scale

In 2025, Appknox helped customers scan 38,912 mobile applications, representing nearly 80 percent year-over-year growth in platform usage. This growth is not just a company milestone; it reflects a broader industry shift.

Security testing is shifting from periodic assessments to an embedded, repeatable practice across development and release cycles.

Across these applications, Appknox identified 346,874 vulnerabilities spanning customer portfolios. While the volume itself is notable, the nature of these findings is far more instructive.

The most common issues remained foundational:

• Network security misconfigurations
• Weak transport-layer protections
• Missing runtime defenses
• Exposed app components
• Fragile cryptographic implementations
• Insecure data handling

These are not edge cases. They are systemic patterns that persist as development velocity continues to outpace manual review processes.

Among these findings were 8,412 critical-severity issues. With automated detection and prioritization, teams were able to surface these high-impact risks 60–70 percent faster than traditional manual approaches.

This comparison is based on widely cited industry benchmarks, where manual mobile application security reviews typically take several days, or even weeks, per release, depending on application complexity and reviewer availability. Automated testing enables near-immediate identification during development and CI pipelines, dramatically shrinking the window between vulnerability introduction and detection.

The conclusion is clear: speed is no longer a convenience in security; it is a prerequisite.

Why speed now defines security effectiveness

• Manual reviews → Days or weeks per release
• Automated testing → Near-immediate detection during development
• Delayed detection → Expanded exposure window
• Early detection → Faster remediation and lower risk

2025 at a glance: Key security outcomes

These numbers reflect not just growth, but a broader shift in how enterprises operationalize mobile security at scale.

Patterns observed across mobile apps in 2025

These findings reflect systemic challenges, not isolated engineering mistakes.

Product momentum: Security that scales with software

In 2025, we shipped 17 product releases, each guided by a simple principle:
Security must adapt to how teams build and ship mobile applications today, not how they worked in the past.

Several updates marked meaningful progress toward that goal.

Privacy Shield with AI-based PII detection pushed privacy risk identification earlier in the lifecycle, giving teams automated visibility into sensitive data exposure before apps reached production or app stores.

ML model detection in SBOM acknowledged a rapidly emerging reality: AI and machine-learning components are now part of the mobile supply chain and must be inventoried, governed, and assessed alongside traditional dependencies.

Auto discovery in Storeknox addressed a persistent organizational blind spot by continuously identifying unknown, duplicate, or newly published app listings across marketplaces.

Expanded geo coverage for drift detection reflected the complexity of global app distribution, enabling teams to detect store-level changes and inconsistencies across regions.

The AI reporting engine transformed raw security findings into clear, action-ready insights, helping engineering and security teams focus on what actually matters.

Taken together, these enhancements represent more than feature expansion. They reflect our continued focus on reducing cognitive load for teams while expanding security coverage across the entire mobile lifecycle.

Appknox’s product progress in 2025

Each release was designed to remove friction, not add process.

Customers, trust, and measurable outcomes

Our progress in 2025 was reinforced by strong customer outcomes:

• 92.4% CSAT, reflecting consistently positive feedback
• 68 Product NPS, highlighting strong customer advocacy
• 108% Net Revenue Retention, showing continued expansion within existing accounts
• 50+ new customers, marking a solid year of commercial momentum

Trust is earned through reliability, clarity, and measurable impact. We remain focused on delivering all three.

Looking ahead: Why 2026 will be the year of AI-native mobile security

From legacy security to AI-native security

As we look toward 2026, one shift stands out clearly:
Security platforms must become AI-native by design, not AI-assisted as an afterthought.

The scale and complexity of modern mobile ecosystems, frequent releases, AI-powered features, expanding supply chains, and global distribution have fundamentally outgrown human-centric security workflows.

The next phase of security evolution is not about replacing people.
It is about building systems that think, adapt, and learn at machine speed.

We see three defining changes shaping the year ahead.

From automation to AI-native security systems

AI-native platforms will embed intelligence at their core. Models will not simply accelerate testing; they will understand application behavior, risk patterns, and change over time. Testing depth and focus will continuously adapt based on real-world signals rather than static rules.

From findings to intelligence

Security must move beyond vulnerability lists. AI-native systems will correlate findings across scans, releases, stores, and environments to deliver prioritization, impact analysis, and clear guidance on what matters most, and why.

From point-in-time assurance to continuous confidence

As development velocity increases, security must provide ongoing assurance. In 2026, confidence will come from knowing that every code change, dependency update, store modification, and configuration shift is continuously evaluated—without requiring constant manual oversight.

At Appknox, our focus for the coming year is clear. We are building AI-native mobile security that scales with modern software delivery while remaining transparent, explainable, and actionable for teams.

What 2026 demands from mobile security

• Intelligence built into the system, not layered on
• Continuous confidence, not periodic assurance
• Transparency and explainability alongside automation
• Security that adapts as fast as software changes

Closing thoughts

2025 made one thing unmistakably clear: mobile security is at an inflection point.

The challenges are well understood. The risks are escalating. And the expectations placed on security teams have never been higher.

What comes next is not incremental improvement.
It is a shift in how security is delivered and experienced.

We are grateful to our customers, partners, and team for helping us push the industry forward. As we move into 2026, we remain committed to building security that works at the speed of modern mobile development.