Mobile Penetration Testing for Android & iOS Applications
Understand how mobile penetration testing protects your app from threats. Explore testing stages, common risks, and tools like MobSF, Frida, Burp Suite & more.
We live in a mobile-first world where our phones are no longer used to make calls and send texts. They carry our wallets, serve as digital journals, can become temporary desks when we are on the road, and play our favourite shows at night. They are perceived as easy money by bad actors because we lean on them all day and every day. So, mobile device penetration testing is a huge thing because it searches our devices and looks at the weak points so that they can be attacked before we fix them.
What is Mobile Penetration Testing?
Penetration Testing for mobile simply refers to bludgeoning an application on a mobile or an operating system say Android or iOS with attacks to find out where it fails. You are basically performing hacks on the real world to know the strength of the defences of the app and to identify the weak areas before they are actually exploited by criminals.
In contrast to web application testing, mobile pentesting is not without its challenges: platform-specific vulnerabilities, device fragmentation, hardware-level security, and poor insight into backend APIs.
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Why Mobile Pentesting is Important?
- Quick development: the faster the development, the less secure it is. You write code quickly, and that may leave uninspected gaps or overlooked weaknesses.
- Sensitive data storage: Personal, financial, and health data is stored by mobile apps. When that leaks, it is a disaster.
- Third-party integrations: Apps may also rely on third-party SDKs, which introduce their security vulnerabilities.
- Unsecure network communication: Many apps still send data that is not well encrypted putting users at risk.
What Does the Mobile Penetration Testing Process Include?
Start using Recon and Information Gathering. Pick up the fundamental’s version, access, API, endpoints, and the libraries it depends on. This puts in place the platform of what is to follow.
- Then comes Static Analysis, or the art of looking at the source code of the app or APK/IPA file and not launching it. Such tools as MobSF (Mobile Security Framework) check hardcoded credentials, questionable setups, and obsolete libraries.
- Switch to Dynamic Analysis and you are testing the app when it is in full swing on a rooted/jailbroken device or emulator. This stage reveals the runtime vulnerabilities like: data being stored in an insecure manner, information being transmitted over the network in plaintext, or API being misused.
- The backend APIs are attached to mobile apps, and hence, API Testing follows. You are looking at broken authentication, rate-limiting traps, and data leakage through wobbly endpoints.
- Where things are interesting is Reverse Engineering. You can decompile the app with the help of such tools as JADX or Ghidra to explore its guts and track down lurking errors.
- In case of vulnerability, the Exploit Phase comes in. You attempt to use them in a monitored setting to estimate the risk and the effect.
- Lastly, the Reporting and Remediation stage transforms all the information into a report with all the vulnerabilities, their severity, and sequential remediation suggestions to developers.
Common Mobile Device Vulnerabilities
Consider these as the most typical soft spots that hackers enjoy pricking.
- You are storing data in shared preferences or plain-text files. That is begging to be hit.
- You are not doing enough (or any) encryption of sensitive information.
- You are opening the doors to users without even verifying who they are and that is an open door.
- You are hiding API keys or passwords in your code where everyone can pick them up.
- You do not perform certificate pinning, and, therefore, the attacker can replace the actual certificate with a fake one.
- You are using third-party libraries that have not been vetted, and one of them is shipping a backdoor.
When you see any of these in your code, then the security of your app is in danger.
Mobile Penetration Testing Tools
- MobSF – The tool of choice to knock out automated static and dynamic analysis.
- Burp Suite – The interception and modification of network traffic Swiss Army knife as far as mobile apps are concerned.
- Frida- The powerful instrumentation toolkit you will rely upon to analyze the runtime.
- JADX – The Android package decompiler you will reach for next time you have to crack open a package.
- Drozer Android attack framework that you will turn to when you are feeling like going all-in.
- Objection – The runtime mobile exploring tool that is ideal to poke around on devices.
- APKTool – You will want to pick up APKTool every time you feel like cracking Android packages is the most secure path.
Best Practices for Secure Mobile Development
- Adhere to best practices of secure coding and conduct code review regularly.
- Whenever possible, keep sensitive data out of the device.
- Put everything under lock and key by using good authentication and authorization.
- Encrypt all communications by TLS 1.2 or above.
- Make the code unreadable so it is agony to reverse engineer.
- Always test, test and re-test- particularly when making updates or a new version.
Conclusion
Consider mobile penetration testing as undercover work. It is much more than searching bugs; it is ensuring that users have confidence in the app, the brand, and their online security. Hackers are never done evolving, and security should not be an afterthought in the development of an app. A safe application is not a commodity but a guarantee to its customers.