Why Banking and Healthcare Apps Must Avoid Public Device Cloud for Testing

Every day, financial and healthcare institutions manage vast volumes of sensitive information. Transaction histories. Identity credentials. Clinical records with Protected Health Information (PHI). Data that once lived inside controlled networks now flows through mobile devices carried everywhere.

In banking and healthcare, data loss is not a technical incident–it is a business, legal, and reputational crisis. A single exposure of financial credentials can lead to fraud, account takeovers, and direct financial losses. A breach of healthcare data can disrupt care delivery, violate patient privacy, and trigger severe regulatory penalties. In both sectors, the aftermath extends beyond fines: loss of customer and patient trust, operational disruption, and long-term damage to institutional credibility.

​​In 2024, over 276 million healthcare records were exposed, with breaches costing nearly $10 million per incident, and nearly half of financial institutions reported breaches last year, and 65 % faced ransomware attacks. 

The Hidden Risks of Public Device Clouds

1. Shared Devices Mean Shared Risk

Public device clouds are multi-tenant by design.

That means:

• Devices are reused across different companies
• Environments are reset automatically, not manually verified
• Residual data risk exists between sessions

For a banking or healthcare app, even a perceived risk of data leakage is unacceptable.

Many public device cloud providers explicitly position shared device environments for functional and compatibility testing, recognizing that they are not designed to meet the security and compliance requirements of sensitive or regulated data.

2. Compliance and Audit Complexity

Banking and healthcare organizations must comply with strict regulations, such as:

• PCI DSS
• HIPAA
• SOC 2
• ISO 27001
• GDPR

These frameworks require:

• Clear data ownership
• Controlled access
• Audit trails
• Predictable environments

Public device clouds introduce friction at this boundary. Because devices and infrastructure are shared, control over device state, data handling, and isolation shifts away from the organization and into the platform itself. This structural loss of control makes it difficult for regulated teams to ensure that testing conditions align with the intent of these compliance requirements.

3. Inconsistent Environments Undermine Assurance

Banking and healthcare applications are designed to support large-scale usage, but trust is established only when they perform reliably and predictably in high-pressure, real-world conditions.

Common issues teams report in a shared environment:

• Background processes from previous sessions
• OS drift across devices
• Performance inconsistencies
• Network unpredictability

For a banking or healthcare app, this leads to:

• Flaky tests
• Missed performance bottlenecks
• Bugs that appear only in production

An app that passes tests in an unstable environment can still fail in the real world.

Banking and healthcare organizations do not just test for functionality. They test for:

• Authentication flows
• Encryption behavior
• Secure storage
• Session handling
• Data persistence

These tests require complete confidence in the device itself, not just the test results.

Why Private Device Farms Are the Better Alternative

Private device farms offer a fundamentally different approach:

• Isolated environments
• Controlled access
• Predictable configurations

For regulated apps, this is not about luxury. It is about responsibility.

With a Private Device Farm:

• Devices are not shared across organizations
• Data never leaves your controlled environment
• Audit readiness improves
• Test reliability increases
• Security assumptions become security guarantees

Establishing Control With a Private Device Cloud

AstroFarm is built to support regulated mobile app testing with an architecture that reflects enterprise security and compliance realities rather than consumer convenience trade-offs. 

Eliminate Shared Risk Through True Device Isolation

AstroFarm operates on company-owned or employee-contributed physical devices that are exclusively assigned to your organization. Devices are managed internally, eliminating third-party exposure and reducing the risk of external data breaches.

Enforce Least-Privilege Access With Device-Level Controls

Admins can create user groups and assign specific devices to individual users or teams. This ensures testers access only authorized devices, supporting least-privilege access, traceability, and audit readiness.

Protect Test Data With Enterprise-Grade Security and Compliance

AstroFarm complies with global security and privacy standards, including SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA, and Cyber Essentials. Sensitive data such as credentials and identifiers are encrypted, ensuring banking and healthcare test data remains protected within AstroFarm’s controlled cloud.

Detect Stability and Security Issues With App Crash Logs

AstroFarm captures detailed application crash logs, giving teams visibility into runtime exceptions, stability failures, and error patterns that could impact transactions, patient workflows, or secure sessions.

Scale Testing Without Compromising Governance

Teams can expand device coverage and parallel testing while maintaining full control over access, data handling, and compliance evidence.

AstroFarm was designed with these priorities at the center, enabling institutions to modernize their mobile app testing pipelines while retaining full ownership of the testing environment. This aligns mobile quality assurance with enterprise risk management.