A Laravel API used by a mobile app is secure when Sanctum tokens expire and carry narrow abilities, every record lookup is checked by a policy, input passes through validated() and $fillable , named rate limiters guard login and writes, APP_DEBUG is off with secrets out of git, and composer audit gates every deploy. Logging and alerting close the loop.

Mobile backends fail security reviews for the same few reasons: tokens that never expire, lookups that check identity but not ownership, no limits on login or OTP endpoints, and logs that cannot answer “who read this record?” This is the order I work through when hardening a Laravel API behind a mobile app. For the design side (versioning, response shape, pagination), see Laravel as a backend for mobile apps .

Checklist mapped to the OWASP API Security Top 10 (2023)

The OWASP API Security Top 10 is the list most security reviewers work from.…