Mobile Application Pentesting

What is mobile pen testing?

Mobile or Android penetration testing primarily aims to detect security vulnerabilities and ensure that mobile applications both android and ios are not susceptible to attacks.

Why your organization needs mobile pen testing?

Penetration testing (pentesting) is critical for enterprises to identify and address se-curity vulnerabilities before they are exploited by bad actors. Pentesting, which simu-lates cyberattacks, helps identify flaws in your systems, applications, and network ar-chitecture, allowing you to resolve them proactively. This not only safeguards sensi-tive data and preserves consumer trust, but it also assures compliance with industry standards, which frequently need regular security evaluations.

Investing in pentesting improves your organization's overall security posture by of-fering insights to help improve defenses and incident response procedures. In today's quickly changing threat landscape, staying ahead of prospective assaults is critical for securing your digital assets, avoiding costly breaches, and preserving your organiza-tion's reputation.

Identify Vulnerabilities Before Hackers Do

Pentesting allows your organization to uncover security weaknesses in your systems, applications, and network infrastructure. By identifying these vulnerabilities proactively, you can address them before they become entry points for cybercriminals. This preemptive approach helps protect sensitive data, maintain customer trust, and avoid the costly repercussions of a data breach.

Comply with Regulatory Requirements

Many industries are governed by stringent regulations that mandate regular security assessments. For instance, sectors like finance, healthcare, and retail often require organizations to conduct penetration testing as part of their compliance obligations. By conducting regular pentests, your organization can ensure it meets these regulatory requirements, avoiding penalties and legal liabilities.

Enhance Your Security Posture

Penetration testing is not just about finding flaws; it's also about improving your overall security strategy. The insights gained from a pentest can guide your organization in strengthening its defenses, whether that means patching vulnerabilities, updating security protocols, or refining incident response plans. Regular pentesting contributes to a more resilient security posture over time.

Protect Your Reputation

A data breach can severely damage your organization?s reputation, leading to a loss of customer trust and business opportunities. Pentesting helps to mitigate this risk by ensuring that your security measures are up to date and effective. Demonstrating a commitment to cybersecurity can also enhance your brand?s reputation, reassuring customers that their data is in safe hands.

Stay Ahead of Evolving Threats

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving, with new threats emerging regularly. Pentesting allows your organization to stay ahead of these threats by testing your defenses against the latest attack techniques. This proactive approach ensures that your security measures are not only reactive but also adaptive to the changing threat environment.

Test Incident Response Capabilities

Pentesting provides an opportunity to test your organization?s incident response procedures. By simulating real-world attacks, you can assess how well your team responds to a breach and identify areas for improvement. This preparedness is crucial for minimizing damage and recovering quickly in the event of an actual cyberattack.

Cost-Effective Security Investment

While penetration testing requires an upfront investment, it is cost-effective in the long run. The cost of a successful cyberattack can be astronomical, including expenses related to data recovery, legal fees, regulatory fines, and reputational damage. Investing in pentesting helps to prevent such costly incidents, making it a wise allocation of your security budget.

Common vulnerability

a. Insecure Data Storage

Risk: Sensitive information such as login credentials, tokens, and personal da-ta may be stored insecurely in the app's local storage, database, or cache.

Testing: Pentesters check if data is stored without encryption or with weak encryption methods, making it accessible to attackers who gain physical access to the device or use malware.

b. Weak Server-Side Controls

Risk: Improper validation and authorization mechanisms on the server can al-low attackers to perform unauthorized actions or access sensitive data.

Testing: Pentesters assess server-side APIs and backend processes to ensure that they enforce proper authentication and authorization, preventing unauthorized access.

c. Secure Communication

Risk: Data transmitted between the app and server might be exposed if not properly encrypted, allowing attackers to intercept and manipulate data through man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.

Testing: Pentesters test for the use of secure communication protocols like HTTPS and assess the implementation of certificate pinning to prevent MITM attacks.

d. Improper Session Handling

Risk: Poor session management can allow attackers to hijack user sessions, potentially gaining unauthorized access to user accounts.

Testing: Pentesters evaluate session tokens' security, such as whether they are appropriately generated, stored, and invalidated after logout or inactivity.

e. Insecure Authentication

Risk: Weak or flawed authentication mechanisms can allow attackers to bypass login screens or brute force their way into user accounts.

Testing: Pentesters examine how the app handles user authentication, including password storage practices, the strength of the authentication process, and the implementation of multi-factor authentication (MFA).

f. Inadequate Cryptography

Risk: Improper use of cryptographic functions or outdated algorithms can lead to data being easily decrypted by attackers.

Testing: Pentesters review the app's cryptographic implementations to ensure strong, current algorithms are used and that sensitive data is properly encrypted.

g. Unintended Data Leakage

Risk: Sensitive information might be unintentionally exposed through logs, backups, or third-party services integrated into the app.

Testing: Pentesters look for data leakage points, such as unintentional logging of sensitive data, sending data to unintended destinations, or excessive data stored in the clipboard or backup files.

h. Insecure Code Practices

Risk: Code vulnerabilities such as hardcoded credentials, insecure APIs, or insufficient input validation can open the app to exploitation.

Testing: Pentesters analyze the codebase (via reverse engineering on Android or jailbreak techniques on iOS) for insecure coding practices that could lead to vulnerabilities.

i. Client-Side Injection

Risk: Input fields that are not properly sanitized can allow attackers to inject malicious code, such as SQL, JavaScript, or shell commands, into the app.

Testing: Pentesters attempt various injection attacks on input fields to determine if they can manipulate the app's behavior or extract sensitive data.

j. Weaknesses in Third-Party Libraries

Risk: Mobile apps often rely on third-party libraries that may contain vulnerabilities, potentially introducing security risks into the app.

Testing: Pentesters evaluate the security of third-party libraries and frameworks used by the app, checking for known vulnerabilities and proper integration.

Our approach

Our approach to mobile application penetration testing at Hagion is thorough, rigorous, and customized to meet your unique security requirements. In order to make sure your mobile apps are safe from a variety of possible attacks, we search for and fix vulnerabilities in both iOS and Android. Our strategy entails the following crucial steps:

First Evaluation and Scheduling

We start by having a complete understanding of the architecture, purpose, and design of your mobile application. This entails figuring out the main functions of the program, the kinds of data it manages, and the security specifications unique to your sector. We collaborate closely with your team to define the testing parameters, emphasizing the areas that are most important to both user safety and your company's operations.

Static and Dynamic Analysis.

Our team conducts static and dynamic analysis of the mobile application. Stat-ic analysis examines the app's source code or binary files to detect unsafe coding techniques, hardcoded credentials, and the use of out-of-date or vulnerable libraries. Dynamic analysis, on the other hand, entails running the app in a controlled environment and observing its behavior in real-time, looking for problems such as unsecured data storage, poor session handling, and potential data leaking.

Comprehensive Vulnerability Testing.

We do extensive testing for common vulnerabilities such as unsecured data storage, ineffective authentication measures, and poor session management. This involves examining the app's communication routes for encryption flaws, evaluating server-side controls for potential exploitation, and conducting client-side injections to assess the app's susceptibility to attacks.

Manual and Automated Testing.

Our strategy combines automated and manual testing approaches. Automated technologies enable us to quickly detect known vulnerabilities and trends, whereas human testing allows us to investigate complicated security issues that automated methods may overlook. This dual method guarantees a complete analysis of your mobile application.

Exploiting and Reporting

Once vulnerabilities have been identified, we will undertake safe exploitation to determine the possible impact of each issue. This allows us to prioritize the findings according to danger degree. We then create a complete report that not only outlines the vulnerabilities discovered, but also makes practical recommendations for remedy. Our report contains a detailed description of each issue, its possible impact, and step-by-step instructions for how to resolve it.

Post-Test Support

Our commitment to your security does not end with the report's delivery. We provide post-testing support to help your development team comprehend the results and apply the recommended solutions. We may also retest the software to check that all vulnerabilities have been resolved and that it is secure before it goes public.

Continuous Monitoring and Improvement.

Given the ever-changing threat landscape, we recommend performing regular penetration testing as part of a comprehensive security strategy. We can help you set up a continuous monitoring mechanism to discover and address new vulnerabilities as they emerge, ensuring that your mobile applications remain secure over time.