Mobile Security

Mobile Application Penetration Test

A Mobile Application Penetration Test assesses the security of your mobile applications by simulating real-world attacks to identify vulnerabilities and potential risks.

What you'll get:
  • A comprehensive evaluation of your mobile application's security
  • Vulnerability coverage beyond OWASP Top 10
  • Specialized and specific testing depending on iOS or Android applications
  • Recommendations for reverse engineering prevention and secure configuration
  • A comprehensive report with detailed findings and remediations steps
  • Remediation and patch validation testing to confirm vulnerability fixes

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What is Mobile Application Penetration Testing?

Mobile application penetration testing is a comprehensive security assessment of your iOS and Android applications that evaluates the app's client-side security, backend API communications, and data storage practices. Our security consultants reverse engineer your mobile application, analyze its network traffic, and test for platform-specific vulnerabilities to identify security weaknesses before attackers can exploit them.

Mobile apps present unique security challenges compared to web applications. They store data locally on user devices, communicate with backend servers over potentially untrusted networks, and must protect sensitive logic within an application binary that users can decompile and analyze. A thorough mobile penetration test examines all of these attack surfaces.

DarkPoint Security tests both iOS and Android applications using the OWASP Mobile Security Testing Guide (MSTG), examining everything from insecure data storage and weak cryptographic implementations to reverse engineering protections and server-side API security.

Mobile application security testing

Why Your Organization Needs Mobile Application Penetration Testing

Mobile applications often handle the most sensitive user data — credentials, financial information, personal health data, and location information. A compromised mobile app can lead to mass data exposure and significant reputational damage.

  • Protect Sensitive User Data — Identify insecure data storage, weak encryption, and data leakage through logs, backups, and clipboard that could expose user information
  • Secure Client-Server Communication — Validate that your app properly implements certificate pinning, TLS configuration, and protects against man-in-the-middle attacks
  • Compliance Requirements — Meet PCI DSS, PIPEDA, SOC 2, and app store security requirements that mandate security testing for applications handling sensitive data
  • Prevent Reverse Engineering — Assess the effectiveness of your obfuscation, tamper detection, and anti-debugging protections against motivated attackers

Our Mobile Testing Methodology

DarkPoint Security follows industry-recognized methodologies tailored for mobile application security:

  • OWASP Mobile Security Testing Guide (MSTG) — Our primary framework, providing comprehensive test cases for iOS and Android platforms
  • OWASP Mobile Application Security Verification Standard (MASVS) — Defines the security requirements we verify across three levels of assurance
  • PTES — Structures our engagement workflow from scoping through reporting
  • NIST SP 800-115 — Guides our technical security testing approach

Our testing process includes static analysis of the application binary to identify hardcoded secrets and insecure code patterns, dynamic analysis to test runtime behavior and network communications, reverse engineering to evaluate code protection mechanisms, and backend API testing to assess the server-side security of your mobile application's API endpoints.

Testing Coverage

Our mobile application penetration tests cover platform-specific and cross-platform vulnerability categories:

  • Insecure data storage (Keychain, SharedPreferences, SQLite)
  • Weak or improper cryptographic implementations
  • Insecure network communication and certificate pinning
  • Authentication and session management flaws
  • Broken authorization and privilege escalation
  • Client-side injection (JavaScript, SQL, intent)
  • Binary analysis and reverse engineering
  • Hardcoded secrets, API keys, and credentials
  • Data leakage through logs, clipboard, and backups
  • Jailbreak and root detection bypass
  • Anti-tampering and code obfuscation assessment
  • Deep link and URL scheme vulnerabilities
  • Inter-process communication (IPC) security
  • WebView security and JavaScript bridge exploitation
  • Push notification security
  • Backend API security testing

Industries We Serve

DarkPoint Security provides mobile application penetration testing to organizations across Canada building customer-facing and enterprise mobile applications. We serve financial services and banking (mobile banking, payment apps, PCI DSS), healthcare (patient portals, telehealth apps, PIPEDA), technology and SaaS (consumer and enterprise apps, SOC 2), and government and public sector organizations. Our testing accounts for the data sensitivity and regulatory requirements specific to each industry.

Why Choose DarkPoint Security

  • Manual-First Approach — Our testers manually reverse engineer your application and test runtime behavior, uncovering vulnerabilities that automated mobile scanning tools miss
  • iOS and Android Expertise — We have deep experience testing applications on both platforms, including platform-specific attack techniques and security controls
  • Certified Security Professionals — Our team holds OSCP, CEH, and CISSP certifications with specialized mobile application security expertise
  • Proven Vulnerability Research — Our published CVEs demonstrate our ability to discover novel vulnerabilities in commercial products
  • Canadian Data Residency — As a Toronto-based firm, all testing data and reports remain within Canadian jurisdiction

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, we test applications on both iOS and Android platforms. Each platform has unique security considerations — iOS apps require different analysis techniques than Android apps due to differences in sandboxing, data storage, and binary protections. We recommend testing both versions if your application is available on both platforms, as vulnerabilities often differ between them.

No, source code is not required. We can perform thorough testing using just the compiled application binary (IPA or APK), the same version users download from the App Store or Google Play. However, if source code is available, combining a penetration test with a source code security review provides the most comprehensive assessment.

A typical mobile application penetration test takes 1 to 3 weeks per platform. The duration depends on the application's complexity, number of features, authentication mechanisms, and whether backend API testing is included. Testing both iOS and Android versions simultaneously is often more efficient than testing them separately.

Yes, our mobile application penetration tests include testing the backend APIs that the app communicates with. We intercept and analyze all network traffic between the app and its servers, testing for authentication flaws, authorization bypasses, data exposure, and server-side vulnerabilities. For a more thorough API assessment, we recommend combining this with a dedicated API penetration test.

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