Checkpoint 1.8 - Mobile-PDA

Caching refers to the storage of information received by a device in a location that is closer to the device than the originating server. This can be on a network device or on the device itself. Using cached information can effectively reduce the need to reload data such as style sheets, images and pages. This reduces transmission costs and improves performance.

Requirement

Caching information has been provided in HTTP responses

Recommendation

Caching is especially important for mobile devices due to the limited bandwidth, cost of data transmission to the user, and the long delays, known as network latency, often experienced on mobile networks between requesting information and receiving it.

Checking Tool

• Check for the presence of cache headers on the HTTP response.
• Check the source code of the file to verify that the HTML Cache-Control meta element has been used eg. <meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" ....> and that the content attribute contains something other than no-Cache.