JWTs are widely used in mobile apps for authentication — but architectural misuse of JWTs remains one of the most common causes of account takeover (ATO) in fintech, SaaS, and consumer applications.
The issue isn’t JWT itself.
It’s how identity, trust, and session lifecycle are designed around it.
In this article, I break down 5 recurring JWT mistakes seen in real-world systems:
- Treating JWTs as session state (no revocation)
- Insecure token storage on Android and iOS
- Overloading JWTs with roles and authority
- Missing refresh-token rotation and invalidation
- Weak backend validation (issuer, audience, expiry)
The deep dive covers both mobile and backend perspectives, explains how these flaws are exploited in practice, and outlines production-grade architectural patterns with clear security trade-offs.
👉 Read the full architect-level article on Medium:
https://medium.com/@vaibhav.shakya786/jwt-in-mobile-apps-5-mistakes-that-lead-to-account-takeover-2bc0afb84c5d
If you’re designing or reviewing authentication for mobile apps, this is less about tools — and more about trust boundaries, threat modeling, and system design.
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