  Mobile apps exploit embedded sensors and wireless connectivity of a device to
empower users with portable computations, context-aware communication, and
enhanced interaction. Specifically, mobile health apps (mHealth apps for short)
are becoming integral part of mobile and pervasive computing to improve the
availability and quality of healthcare services. Despite the offered benefits,
mHealth apps face a critical challenge, i.e., security of health critical data
that is produced and consumed by the app. Several studies have revealed that
security specific issues of mHealth apps have not been adequately addressed.
The objectives of this study are to empirically (a) investigate the challenges
that hinder development of secure mHealth apps, (b) identify practices to
develop secure apps, and (c) explore motivating factors that influence secure
development. We conducted this study by collecting responses of 97 developers
from 25 countries, across 06 continents, working in diverse teams and roles to
develop mHealth apps for Android, iOS, and Windows platform. Qualitative
analysis of the survey data is based on (i) 8 critical challenges, (ii)
taxonomy of best practices to ensure security, and (iii) 6 motivating factors
that impact secure mHealth apps. This research provides empirical evidence as
practitioners view and guidelines to develop emerging and next generation of
secure mHealth apps.
