Conducting Mobile App Penetration Test

When to Use

• Testing mobile applications before release to identify security vulnerabilities and data protection issues
• Conducting compliance assessments against OWASP MASVS (Mobile Application Security Verification Standard) levels L1 and L2
• Evaluating the security of mobile banking, healthcare, or government applications handling sensitive data
• Testing mobile apps that interact with backend APIs to assess the end-to-end security of the mobile ecosystem
• Assessing mobile application resistance to reverse engineering, tampering, and runtime manipulation

Do not use against mobile applications without written authorization from the application owner, for distributing modified or repackaged applications, or for testing apps on the public app stores without a separate test build.

Prerequisites

• Target application IPA (iOS) and APK (Android) files or access to download from a private distribution channel
• Rooted Android device or emulator (Genymotion, Android Studio AVD) with Frida, Objection, and Magisk installed
• Jailbroken iOS device or Corellium virtual device with Frida, Objection, and SSL Kill Switch installed
• Static analysis tools: jadx (Android decompilation), Hopper/Ghidra (iOS binary analysis), MobSF (automated scanning)
• Burp Suite Professional configured as proxy for intercepting mobile app traffic with CA certificate installed on the test device