As part of its effort to improve the online security of its users, tech giant Apple recently announced that it will require all iOS apps to adopt the secure HTTPS connections by 2017. Apple made the announcement at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, adding that the strategy is part of the company's plan to enable a new security feature called App Transport Security.

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In a statement acquired by Tech Crunch, Apple head of security engineering and architecture Ivan Krstic said, "Today, I'm proud to say that at the end of 2016, App Transport Security is becoming a requirement for App Store apps. This is going to provide a great deal of real security for our users and the communications that your apps have over the network."

The Apple App Transport Security, or ATS, was first introduced with the iOS 9 update. The feature forces all apps running on the iOS platform to use secure HTTPS connections rather than the more conventional yet insecure HTTP connection every time they connect to the Internet.

HTTPS secures its data by a series of authentication and encryption before being transmitted to the Internet. By adopting this protocol, companies are at peace that customer data is tightly secured. In the event that this data is snatched while in transit, the information stored cannot be easily accessed or read.

Many tech analysts agree that App Transport Security is an important feature, especially in online banking transactions and messaging applications. Moreover, with the growing threat of online identity theft and hacking, the need for companies to adopt a more secure protocol to protect its users from malicious entities is becoming mandatory.

Apple's App Transport Security feature is currently an opt-in feature, meaning users are the ones who decide when to use the feature.

By 2017, Apple plans to integrate App Transport Security as a default feature to its system.

TagsiOS, apple, Apple iOS, hackers, https, HTTP, Apple App Transport Security, App Transport Security