Posted by: Hasan Sameer
June 23, 2023
Mobile application security is of paramount importance in today’s digital landscape. Mobile applications host numerous personal, financial, and sensitive pieces of information. As a result, cell phones become more and more intertwined in our daily lives. Proper security measures are essential to guard against unauthorized access, data breaches, and harmful actions. Mobile application security protects user information from online dangers like malware, hacking, and data leakage. This guarantees the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of user data. By prioritizing mobile app security, developers may encourage user confidence and uphold the brand reputation. Plus, it provides a safe online space where users can confidently interact with applications, reducing risks and vulnerabilities.
of all mobile financial applications only use proper mobile application security.
of Android mobile devices are susceptible to one of the 25 listed vulnerabilities that are specific to the Android operating system.
of mobile applications having five to ten million downloads carry security flaws.
of applications on Google Play have at least one security flaw.
Mobile pen testing is a comprehensive approach to evaluating the security of a mobile application. It involves systematically assessing the application’s vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and potential entry points for attackers.
The following points show how mobile pentesting addresses every facet of mobile application security:
You can find a mobile application’s vulnerabilities through penetration testing. This also helps you find additional security problems that might be exploited. These problems include poor authentication processes, insecure data storage, and incorrect session management.
It looks at how the application communicates over the network, evaluating encryption mechanisms and confirming the security of network protocols. Plus, it enables spotting potential man-in-the-middle attacks or dangers of data interception.
You may assess the efficiency of authentication methods like passwords, biometrics, or two-factor authentication through penetration testing. It checks to see if access to sensitive capabilities and data is correctly in place. And all of it is adequately controlled with permission controls.
It evaluates how data is stored locally or sent to distant computers. This helps to make sure that private data is securely secured and shielded from intrusion or leakage.
In order to prevent session hijacking or fixation attacks, mobile penetration testing examines how you manage sessions within the application. Session tokens are generated, sent, and invalidated securely during this process.
It looks at how the application processes user inputs. Along with that, it scans for flaws like remote code execution, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting (XSS). Pen testing ensures that data displayed to users is correctly sanitized. Eventually, output encoding helps to lower the possibility of XSS or content injection attacks.
Penetration testing examines the binary code of the mobile app in an effort to reverse engineer it. The purpose behind this is to find any potentially exposed confidential data, cryptographic keys, or intellectual property.
Mobile penetration testing evaluates the security of any third-party libraries, APIs, or software development kits (SDKs) used within the program. This helps to ensure that they don’t introduce vulnerabilities or backdoors.
In order to protect data in transit, penetration testing evaluates how the application handles data transmission. Additionally, it verifies the correct deployment of encryption and secure communication protocols.
Mobile pen testing considers the particular security issues that pertain to mobile devices. This includes securing local storage, guarding against runtime intrusions, and ensuring secure inter-app communication.
So, you get all these benefits if you execute penetration testing mobile applications. However, you need to understand that securing your mobile applications is not a one-time activity. You cannot just be done and dusted with this.
It is important to conduct regular security assessments and make the necessary changes to improve your security posture accordingly. Also, technology is continuously evolving, and the threats are evolving along with them. Therefore, it becomes necessary to keep up with the changing trends and stay one step ahead of the threat actors. You can do it only if you are aware, trained, and educated regarding your mobile application security.
