Zero trust approach to secure sensitive mobile applications and prevent distributed denial of service attacks

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer readable code stored thereon for programming at least one processor to perform steps of:

• responsive to i) incorporating private application access software in a mobile application that operates on a user device to provide functionality to an end user, the private application access software enabling traffic associated with the mobile application to be forwarded to a cloud-based system, and ii) deploying one or more virtual lightweight application connector instances in front of a private application that is accessed by the mobile application, receiving a request to access the private application;
• authenticating the end user based on credentials provided through the mobile application;
• responsive to the authentication, providing connection information via the cloud-based system to the mobile application and the one or more virtual lightweight application connector instances, wherein the virtual lightweight application connector instances are configured to only provide outbound connections on a per-application basis based on the connection information, and wherein the private application access software is adapted to route traffic through the cloud-based system based on the connection information, thereby protecting the private application from the attack;
• and
• providing access to the private application through the mobile application via a plurality of secure tunnels.

A cloud-based system comprising:

• one or more processors and memory storing instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to
• responsive to i) incorporating private application access software in a mobile application that operates on a user device to provide functionality to an end user, the private application access software enabling traffic associated with the mobile application to be forwarded to the cloud-based system, and ii) deploying one or more virtual lightweight application connector instances in front of a private application that is accessed by the mobile application, receive a request to access the private application,
• authenticate the end user based on credentials provided through the mobile application,
• responsive to the authentication, providing connection information via the cloud-based system to the mobile application and the one or more virtual lightweight application connector instances, wherein the virtual lightweight application connector instances are configured to only provide outbound connections on a per-application basis based on the connection information, and wherein the private application access software is adapted to route traffic through the cloud-based system based on the connection information, thereby protecting the private application from the attack;
• and
• provide access to the private application through the mobile application via a plurality of secure tunnels.