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Vaibhav Shakya
Vaibhav Shakya

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Securing Secrets in Android: What Actually Works in Production

In Android apps, nothing on the client is truly secret. APKs can be decompiled, strings extracted, memory inspected, and runtime behavior hooked. Treating the app as a trusted environment is the fastest way to ship insecure software.

Real security comes from architecture, not hiding.

Key ideas covered:

  • Why long-lived secrets must never live on the device
  • Using short-lived, scoped tokens instead of embedded keys
  • Proper use of Android Keystore + AES/GCM for local encryption
  • Whatโ€™s deprecated (Jetpack Security Crypto) and what to use instead
  • Secure transport, integrity signals, and runtime hardening
  • Designing systems that survive compromise, not deny it

If youโ€™re building Android apps that handle sensitive data, payments, or authentication, this is essential reading.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Read the full article on Medium:

https://medium.com/@vaibhav.shakya786/securing-secrets-in-android-from-api-keys-to-production-grade-defense-a2c8dc46948f


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