Mobile App Penetration Testing
Penetration Testing for Mobile Applications
Penetration testing for mobile applications is used to analyze mobile apps security vulnerabilities to protect against attacks. The Apple App Store™ and Google Play™ host nearly than 6 million mobile apps combined.
Organizations need proven mobile security testing across all app components. Successful mobile app pen testing begins with decades of skills, exemplary customer service, flexible scheduling and lightning fast turnaround time. These critical elements facilitate a threat-based approach, thoroughly testing with multiple analysis types, and assistance to remediate and validate any issues discovered.
In short
What NowSecure mobile app penetration testing actually tests
Testing that never gets past the login screen misses the mobile app risk that actually reaches production. NowSecure mobile app penetration testing runs authenticated dynamic analysis on a real physical device, exercising the app as it runs post-login, so security teams see and govern the risk that conventional scanning misses because it lives inside the authenticated binary on the device.
When to test
When a Pen Test is needed
There are a number of factors that make penetration tests necessary for mobile apps. Compliance requirements are the most obvious but there are other important factors. Certain features, functionalities, or authentication measures also require a penetration test to ensure the safety of customer data, PII, and
company IP.
- Initial release
- Major update
- Store or handle sensitive data
- Subject to industry regulations
- Require advanced scoping
- Support USB connectivity to external devices
- Use Bluetooth Low Energy
- Use CAPTCHA
- Use multi-factor authentication
- Run on a non-standard platform
- Require defense-in-depth and reverse engineering resiliency
The NowSecure advantage
The NowSecure mobile advantage
Threat modeling
Taking a threat-based approach, NowSecure uses proven repeatable threat model process by analyzing various organization and technical requirements of the mobile app and dependent infrastructure, identifying sensitive data and critical IP in the mobile app, pinpointing the potential threats, and documenting the overall threat profile. This threat model drives a more effective assessment of each mobile app's specific threat landscape.
Remediation guidance and assistance
Developers and security teams need to understand the vulnerabilities found in a mobile pen test and how to fix them. NowSecure partners with development and security teams to fully explain issues identified during mobile pen testing and recommend code changes for proper remediation, coaching the team to understand the attacker approach and exploitability.
Remediation verification and re-testing
Verifying threat isolation and successful remediation of vulnerabilities is critical to success. Through a targeted retest, NowSecure's security analysts confirm proper remediation for confidence the mobile app is safe and ready for production.
Tiered model for level of depth and scrutiny
Because each mobile app has a different risk profile and threat model, NowSecure helps organizations build tiered risk model for their mobile app portfolio. Lower risk apps may require only periodic testing while higher risk apps may require more in depth testing for every release into production. In this way organizations can balance their spend and effort with risk.
Standards and regulations
Meet Standards and regulations requiring penetration tests
OWASP Mobile Security Standards and NowSecure Accreditation
OWASP MASVS
Mobile Application Security Verification Standard
THE VERIFICATION STANDARD
Security requirements a shipped mobile app should meet.
MASVS categories include:
STORAGE
NETWORK
AUTH
PRIVACY
CODE
RESILIENCE
MASVS categories include:
is the accredited assessment scope (see accreditation lane) mas.owasp.org/MASVS
OWASP MASVS
Mobile Application Security Testing Guide
THE TESTING METHODOLOGY
Technique-level guidance for howto test against MASVS requirements.
Covers techniques for:
Binary analysis plus dynamic instrumentation Authenticated analysis on real devices
MASTG is the companion document
to MASVS. The standard defines what to achieve; MASTG explains how. mas.owasp.org/MASTG
CERT. AND ACCREDITATION
A lab accredited to test against the standard. A different assertion from the standard itself.
MASA
Mobile App Security Assessment Google ADA authorized lab
NIAP
National Information Assurance Partnership certification
A2LA ISO/IEC 17025:2017
Laboratory accreditation standard.
NowSecure Cert. No. 7003.01.
Scope: MASA / MASVS Level 1.
NowSecure is an OWASP MAS Advocate and an A2LA-accredited laboratory. MASVS and MASTG are OWASP Mobile App Security Project standards. Accreditation scope (MASA / MASVS Level 1) is narrower than the full binary and dynamic analysis depth NowSecure applies.
ADA MASA
Google announced that Play developers must publish disclosures in their Play store listings how their apps collect, share, and secure user data. Now, developers can independently assess their applications, with NowSecure, using the highest standard of mobile security and privacy, established by the App Defense Alliance (ADA) using the Mobile Application Security
Assessment (MASA). Developers who receive an Independent Security Review can then utilize the Google Play Data safety section to inform users that their application meets this heightened standard.
NowSecure is an authorized lab to perform these independent security reviews.
OWASP MASVS Compliance
Open Web Application Security Project® (OWASP) is a nonprofit foundation improving the security of software. NowSecure OWASP Pen Testing program
NIAP
Mobile apps are critical to enabling the U.S. federal agencies to meet their mission. Core to that mission is ensuring a high security testing bar for the mobile apps they build and use. The National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) manages a national program for developing Protection Profiles, evaluation methodologies, and policies that will ensure achievable, repeatable, and testable requirements.
NIAP has created the Application Software Protection Profile (App PP), Version 2.0 which includes coverage for mobile apps.
How findings map to the frameworks you already run
A finding confirmed in binary static analysis (apktool, jadx, Ghidra, r2) and then triggered in authenticated dynamic analysis on a real device earns a CI gate the developer team will trust. NowSecure is an OWASP MAS Advocate with three years of contribution to the OWASP Mobile App Security Project. Below-fold frameworks fit: authenticated dynamic analysis exercises five of the eight OWASP MASVS v2 domains with dynamic evidence, MASVS-NETWORK, MASVS-STORAGE, MASVS-AUTH, MASVS-PRIVACY, and MASVS-RESILIENCE, while static and binary analysis covers MASVS-CODE; MASTG drives the testing methodology. NowSecure generates compliance evidence for SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, and HIPAA at each assessment cycle rather than at point-in-time audit intervals; compliance determination remains with the customer's legal and compliance counsel.
Experience
Rest Assured with NowSecure deep Mobile App Pen Testing experience
NowSecure boasts more than 15 years of mobile app pen-testing with experience testing more than 5m mobile apps and the industry's broadest collection of the most skilled pen testers
Our experts have helped hundreds of organizations establish successful mobile app pen testing programs.
Trusted by many of the world's most demanding organizations across banking, insurance, high tech, retail, healthcare, government, IoT and others.
Depth of testing
Not all mobile Pen Tests are created equal
NowSecure offers customers more than 15 years of building advanced tools, delivering expert pen testing security services and actively supporting open-source and industry standards projects. This includes delivering the industry's first full mobile app security solution suite with the launch of an online self-service training, certification program, and substantial enhancements to its existing solution portfolio.
MASVS Domain Coverage by Testing Technique
The eight OWASP MASVS domains and the techniques that exercise them
| MASVS domain | Authenticated dynamic analysis Real physical device, after login | Static and binary analysis apktool, jadx, Ghidra, r2 |
|---|---|---|
| Storage Local data at rest | Primary evidence | Augmenting evidence |
| Crypto Cryptography use | Augmenting evidence | Primary evidence |
| Auth Authentication and session | Primary evidence | Not a primary lane for this domain |
| Network Transport and API traffic | Primary evidence | Not a primary lane for this domain |
| Platform Platform interaction and IPC | Augmenting evidence | Primary evidence |
| Resilience Anti-tamper and reverse-engineering defense | Primary evidence | Augmenting evidence |
| Code Code quality and build settings | Not a primary lane for this domain | Primary evidence |
| Privacy Data collection and sharing | Primary evidence | Augmenting evidence |
- Primary evidence
- Augmenting evidence
- Not a primary lane for this domain
Domain names are the OWASP MASVS categories. Each mark shows the technique that exercises the domain.
Combine Manual and Automated for Depth at Speed
NowSecure Platform Guided Testing combines the best of automated and manual assessments. Each Guided Test runs on the same real physical devices used in every NowSecure Platform assessment, interrogating the mobile app across four passes to test the different network conditions an attacker may exploit. Guided Testing also taps the expertise of a NowSecure Analyst, who interacts directly with the app to provide coverage beyond anti-automation features like 2FA, MFA, and CAPTCHA, while navigating its more complex user flows. The result: depth of coverage at the speed of DevSecOps.
Scale with Pen Testing as a Service
Pen Testing as a Service utilizes automation and manual assessments to empower development and security teams to adopt continuous testing while maintaining a regular cadence of manual assessments. With NowSecure Mobile PTaaS, get access to NowSecure Platform and NowSecure expert penetration testing services, and add industry or standards-based validation.
Integrate testing into the CI/CD and dev
toolchain to automatically initiate and generate tickets from assessments. Get best-in-class penetration testing from the industry leading mobile experts.
Full scope pen tests require sophistication and depth
A consultative approach to full scope
penetration tests is key. Partnering with an
expert to understand the threat landscape,
attack vectors, and key information that can be extracted from a mobile application tailors the test for relevant, thorough testing. Full scope pen tests from NowSecure can be used for independent, third-party verification for compliance or to augment common staffing shortages. NowSecure bolsters security teams with an assessment leveraging industry mobile standards
Focused pen tests for specific workflows
Partner with our pen testing experts to identify and test specific app code in your mobile app, such as crypto / storage or network / backend API or test specific workflows such as account origination or shopping cart transactions. Ensure you are protecting critical app components to prevent customer data leakage, IP theft, credential interception, or worse.
Granular differentiation for unique nature of mobile and web pen testing
Traditional web application security testing fails to fully assess
Assemble and customize your toolkit, here's a checklist
NowSecure continues to extend proven industry leadership in the rapid and secure development of top software for the reverse engineering (radare2) and the dynamic analysis (Frida) of mobile applications. radare2 discovers internal functions in low-level detail. Frida subsequently analyzes behaviors in real time. NowSecure
Workstation
How NowSecure authenticated dynamic analysis evidence holds up for engineers
Authenticated dynamic analysis on a real physical device exercises the app post-login including cert-pinning-bypass via Frida runtime hook (MASVS-NETWORK and MASVS- RESILIENCE), root and jailbreak detection bypass using Objection (which is a Frida-based automation framework) on Android and checkm8 / palera1n / Dopamine toolchains on the relevant iOS device generations, and app-originated API traffic capture through the authenticated session where the real MASVS-NETWORK and MASVS-AUTH risks live.
Note: NowSecure observes app-originated API traffic from the client perspective; server-side or BFF-layer traffic not initiated by the app binary is outside the test scope. Binary analysis of the compiled artifact (apktool, jadx, Ghidra, r2) surfaces third-party SDK behavior, hardcoded tokens, and embedded API endpoint patterns that source-level SAST never reaches. AI- Navigator automates the authentication flow so DAST coverage reaches the post-login attack surface in CI/CD without per-build manual session setup; the canonical success rate is 100% authentication completion across the 91% of apps that are eligible for automated authentication. Static plus dynamic correlation means a finding is confirmed in both the binary artifact and the authenticated runtime session before it reaches the developer queue, which is why the false positive rate drops enough to rebuild CI-gate trust. Calibrated limit: automation deputizes routine coverage across MASVS domains; it does not replace a skilled tester for novel business-logic abuse cases or edge-case authenticated workflows.
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Resources
Mobile Application Risk Management Resources
Frequently asked questions about mobile application security testing
Have more questions? Get in touch with our team.