How to avoid dowloading apps data using xcode

Question

I have developed an iPad Application which save user date in both app's Document and Cache folder. Data in the cache folder is highly sensitive. My problem is securing user data. One thing I notice is anyone can plug the iPad to a Mac and use XCode to download .xcappdata file which contains both Document folder and Cache folder. Is there any way to stop this.

Answer 1

You don't even need XCode for that. You can use a software like iFunBox to access the apps Document folder.

Instead of turning your app around to use a web service I'd suggest encrptying the data with NSKeyedArchiver.

The encoding is done like this:

- (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder

Decoding:

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder

That way you'll have an encrypted file in your Documents folder. I'm using it a lot and it's very easy to implement.

You can read more about it here: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSKeyedArchiver_Class/Reference/Reference.html