Mobile devices are a significant propellant for modern-day digital technology. Mobile devices are compact and the quickest mode to establish instant communication, eclipsing long distances. The underlying element that enables this exchange between individuals using their mobile devices is data. It is data exchanged between two or more devices that make communication or any other activity possible.
The digital mobile technology baseline is a vast data collection, stored either locally or remotely, sharing numerous information fields for multiple purposes. Flexible Image Transport System or FITS is a digital file format useful for storing, transmission, and processing data that in common parlance refers to information or data related to people such as photos, audio, video, text formats, travel itineraries, or shopping details. Private data can never be seen in a silo. It has to coexist with privacy policies that ensure optimal data security.
Mobile devices are inevitable in modern life, and securing mobile data is a critical concern in a digitally-driven world for quite. While there is increasing awareness among individuals to safeguard their data, cybercriminals are always on the lookout for loopholes. There are umpteen safeguards in place to thwart cybercrime, but the slightest of negligence can be an invitation to trouble such as phishing or data theft.
This post is a DIY for iOS developers to enable Keychain wrapper to secure small chunks of data on applications and secure services.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of setting up a keychain wrapper for your iOS app, here’s what Apple has to say about the keychain wrapper API.
‘The keychain services API helps you solve this problem by giving your app a mechanism to store small bits of user data in an encrypted database called a keychain. When you securely remember the password for them, you free the user to choose a complicated one.
Keychain wrapper can be considered to be one of the most secure technologies to store sensitive data, such as passwords, authentication tokens, or session data. Its security stems from the automatic encryption of data that is enabled before the file is stored in the system without the need of building encryption algorithms.
Following are the details on how to use keychain wrapper in mobile application development.
Install SwiftKeychainWrapper framework either by cocoapods or carthage. Sample code for few of the common usages are as follows
Add data value to keychain:
let saveThe Data: Bool = KeychainWrapper.standard.set(“Some String”, forKey: “myKey”)
Retrieve data value from keychain:
let retrieveTheData: String? = KeychainWrapper.standard.string(forKey: “myKey”)
Removedata value from keychain:
let removeTheData: Bool = KeychainWrapper.standard.removeObject(forKey: “myKey”)
Developers can do the following in Keychain Wrapper:
“Service Name” – used to customize bundle identifier value. By default, app Bundle ID is used to store the data in keychain
Data can be shared between applications using keychain by “Access Group”
By default, all items saved to keychain can only be accessed when the device is unlocked. To change this accessibility, an optional withAccessibility param can be set on all requests to select the accessibility level desired
To access the data in keychain in all the different devices used by the users, we can synchronize the data in iCloud
Unlike “User Defaults” – Data stored in Keychain will not get deleted while app cleared from cache (or) uninstalled from the device
Are you looking at developing an iOS application with robust security features? Trigent’s expert developers with decades of experience in iOS app development can help you with end to end development of secure and robust applications. Here’s a solution that was developed with an emphasis on personal data security.
