Table of contents:
- What are mobile application penetration tests?
- What are the benefits of penetration tests? Is it worth it?
- Stages of mobile application penetration tests.
- Automatic and manual tests.
- How long do penetration tests take?
What are mobile application penetration tests?
Mobile application penetration tests correspond to a controlled hijacking of an application with every method the hacker would use during a real attack. The aim of penetration tests is to identify (and ultimately to eliminate) the vulnerabilities in application security, which can be used for unauthorized access to application by the disfavored persona.
Undergoing penetration tests we base on global cybersecurity standards which are included in OWASP Mobile ASVS.
What are the benefits of penetration tests? Is it worth it?
Mobile application penetration tests increase the overall cybersecurity level of an application by detecting and eliminating vulnerabilities included.
The main advantages of mobile penetration tests:
- Operational risk reduction – a hacker attack of your mobile application facilitates unauthorized access to your assets and manipulating them. Penetration tests are the first step towards improving the security and minimize the chance of succeeding the hacker attack.
- Limiting the risk of losing user’s trust – Receiving an access to mobile application enables hackers hostile actions, for example: session hijacking, editing or deleting user’s data or even performing an action from their accounts. All this gathered, has a direct impact on the user’s trust in the application and ultimately on the decision whether to use it or not in the future.
- Determining the direction of further security systems’ development – Once the penetration tests are completed you will receive a comprehensive report which describes the detected threats together with fixing priority for each one. This will help you to plan future actions aiming to improve the security systems.
Manual and automatic tests
Mobile application penetration tests include:
- Automatic tests, the application is automatically scanned for known threats. As a result, the weak points of the security systems can be immediately detected;
- Manual tests correspond to manual checking of the detected vulnerabilities by experienced cybersecurity professional. Additionally, while conducting manual tests we will verify the reaction of an application on untypical threats, which are impossible to be recreated during automatic tests.
Stages of mobile application penetration tests
1. Pre-audit consultation:Before we start, we would like to ask you several questions regarding your mobile application. Also, we will discuss the scope of penetration tests and the deadline to be followed.
2. Mobile application penetration tests in terms of known vulnerabilities:We will verify the reaction of the application in terms of known types of hacker attacks. Also, we will identify the vulnerabilities which enable unauthorized access and app manipulation by the disfavored persona.
3. Verifying the compatibility of mobile device with application:We will investigate what kind of information and where it is saved by application on the mobile device. We will also verify whether data storage and processing methods follow cybersecurity standards.
4. Verification of detected issues :We will determine a degree of severity and estimate the fixing priority of threats found during penetration tests.
5. Complete report on the work performed:At the end you will receive a complete and comprehensive report from us, including a detailed description of the identified threats and recommendations regarding their elimination.
6. Retests:Once the recommended changes are implemented, we advise to repeat the penetration tests in order to make sure that the detected vulnerabilities were indeed successfully removed.
How long do mobile application penetration tests take?
The duration of the penetration tests depends on the complexity of the tested application. Usually it takes from 2 to several days.
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