How to Prevent Keyloggers in Android & iOS Apps

This knowledge base article describes 3 Easy Steps to Prevent Keyloggers in Android & iOS Apps to protect mobile privacy and ensure data loss prevention. No Code, Zero Dev, No SDK.

What Does to Prevent Keyloggers in Android & iOS Apps Protect?

What is keylogging and what are keyloggers?

How to prevent keylogging in mobile apps? Let’s start with Keylogging. This term tends to be thrown around a lot here and there as an example for eavesdropping attacks. In a nutshell, keylogging means that some malicious party has taken over the keyboard component in a user’s device, and uses that to record the user’s keystrokes. This could happen in either of two methods:

1. The device has been rooted/jail-broken, and some malicious party has control over the entire operating system.
2. The user has been lured into installing a 3rd party keyboard. This keyboard comes pre-loaded with keylogging functionality.

In terms of risk management, the following actions can be taken:

1. Detect that your application is deployed in a compromised environment and take preventive actions (e.g. terminate the application)
2. Disallow the use of non-standard/non-official keyboards from within your application.

This article will discuss the latter, i.e. how to pre-determine which keyboards can be used with your application. You can either disallow all non-OS official keyboards or allow a specific set of keyboards to be used with the application. How would that look? While using a fused application, stand on a text field and attempt to change the keyboard. You will be able to select the default keyboards and the ones you specified during fusion.

What does prevent keyloggers protect?

Preventing keyloggers is an essential part of a data loss prevention (DLP) strategy. Prevent keyloggers protects the user name, passwords and all other sensitive and valuable information that users type into apps.

Appdome is a no-code mobile app security platform designed to add security features, like keylogger prevention. This KB shows mobile developers, DevSec and security professionals how to use Appdome’s simple ‘click to build’ user interface to quickly and easily protect mobile privacy and ensure data loss prevention.

Prerequisites for Preventing Keylogging

3 Easy Steps to Prevent Keyloggers in Android & iOS Apps

Please follow these 3 easy steps to prevent keyloggers from stealing sensitive data in Android and iOS apps.

1. Upload an Android or iOS App to Appdome’s no code security platform (.apk, .aab, or .ipa)
2. In the Build Tab, under Security, Select Mobile Privacy and Toggle Keylogging Prevention on (shown below)
3. Click Build My App

Optionally, if there are keyboards you trust:

1. • Toggle the Allow Custom Keyboards switch
   • Add as many keyboard names you wish to whitelist by clicking Add. In iOS, there is also the option to use a wildcard (glob pattern) to match multiple versions of a keyboard.
     For example, in iOS if you want to enable SwiftKey then add com.swiftkey.SwiftKeyApp.Keyboard or just *SwiftKeyApp*. Or for Flesky add com.syntellia.Fleksy.extension.
     To enable SwiftKey in Android you will need to add com.touchtype.swiftkey/com.touchtype.KeyboardService
     Notice that iOS and Android use different identifiers for keyboards. If you are unsure about the identifier of the keyboard you wish to whitelist, use this keyboard discovery app for iOS or this one for Android, which will show you the identifiers of all the keyboards installed on your device.
   • Here are some popular keyboards for iOS and their identifiers to get you started:
     1. Fleksy: com.syntellia.Fleksy.extension
     2. SwiftKey: com.swiftkey.SwiftKeyApp.Keyboard
     3. Bitmoji: com.bitstrips.imoji.BitmojiKeyboard
     4. Blink: com.ethanlongfan.Blink-Keyboard.Keyboard
     5. ColorKeyboard: com.appyfurious.ckfree.extensionnew
     6. FancyKey: com.fancygif.EmojiKeyboard.FancyEmoji
     7. Gboard: com.google.keyboard.KeyboardExtension
     8. GO: com.jb.gokeyboard.customkeyboard
     9. Grammarly: com.grammarly.keyboard.extension
     10. TouchPal: com.cootek.smartinput.keyboard
     11. betterkeyboard: com.berzapp.betterkeyboard.NewThemeKeyboard
   • For Android:
     1. Gboard:
com.google.android.inputmethod.latin/com.android.inputmethod.latin.LatinIME
     2. Facemoji Keyboard: com.simejikeyboard/com.baidu.simeji.SimejiIME
     3. Tenor GIF Keyboard: com.riffsy.FBMGIFApp/com.tenor.android.ime.latin.LatinIME
     4. GO Keyboard: com.jb.emoji.gokeyboard/com.jb.gokeyboard.GoKeyboard
     5. Chrooma Keyboard: com.gamelounge.chroomakeyboard/org.smc.inputmethod.indic.LatinIME
     6. Fleksy: com.syntellia.fleksy.keyboard/.Fleksy
     7. Classic Keyboard: com.appstech.classic/com.menny.android.iconmekeyboard.SoftKeyboard
     8. Cheetah Keyboard: panda.keyboard.emoji.theme/com.android.inputmethod.latin.LatinIME
     9. SwiftKey Keyboard: com.touchtype.swiftkey/com.touchtype.KeyboardService

Congratulations! You now have a secured mobile app that prevents keyloggers from stealing sensitive information entered by the mobile app user.

Dany Zatuchna