How to Perform Mobile Application Pen Testing

2. Analysis, Assessment, and Evaluation

When the discovery phase is completed, the tester begins a detailed examination and assessment of the application. This phase includes observation of the application both before and after the installation. The following are the key assessment techniques:

• Static and dynamic analysis
• Architecture analysis
• Reverse engineering
• Analysis of file system
• Inter-application communication

3. Exploitation

It is the phase in which the application is checked against simulated attack vectors to check how it will behave when under a real attack. The mobile applications under test are exposed to malicious payloads and the response is noted to determine the resilience of the application functionalities to malicious activities.

4. Reporting

After the exploitation of the application, the entire process is documented along with the key findings. The attacks performed, types of malicious payloads used, damages, risk analysis, and vulnerabilities uncovered, everything features in this report. This helps in taking respective steps further to remediate the issues.

Parameters to Test during Mobile Penetration Testing

The following five are the pointers you need to keep an eye on while Mobile pen testing:

1. Architecture, design, and threat modeling: It is crucial to understand the architecture of the mobile application before conducting a penetration test on it. It will set the tone for the test and give a clear idea of how to approach further with the pen testing on the application.
2. Network communication: Most functionalities of mobile applications involve data transfer. This makes your user-sensitive data exposed to hackers. During penetration testing, you must focus on network communication to get hold of how the data travels over networks.
3. Data storage and privacy: Anything stored in clear text on your application is like a gift for hackers. Applications usually store passwords, API (Application Programming Interface) keys, etc., in clear test format such as Strings.xml file. Hence, you need to take care of these files during penetration testing.
4. Authentication and session management: In the mobile pen testing process, you must include tests for session management issues. Session must expire on password change and the misconfigured backup codes for multi-factor authentication should be visible. These are a few major areas to focus on in this regard.
5. Misconfiguration errors in code or build settings: Usually, mobile app developers do not give much attention to the error messages. They develop the application in such a way that no application-related internal information is revealed to the user. Simultaneously, they try to work on debugging messages and error codes.