Mobile Application Penetration Testing

When to Activate

• Android/iOS application security assessment, bug-bounty mobile triage, or app-store reconnaissance
• Need to intercept TLS traffic (SSL/cert pinning, Android 14/15 Conscrypt-APEX trust store, Flutter/RN stacks)
• Bypass root/jailbreak or biometric-gating controls during dynamic analysis
• Enumerate and exploit exported components, content providers, deep links, and WebViews
• Extract secrets from insecure storage (SharedPrefs, SQLite, Keychain, Keystore) and reverse hybrid apps

Technique Map

Quick Start

# ---- ANDROID ----
# 0. Pull + statically triage the APK (manifest, secrets, exported surface, framework ID)
adb shell pm path com.target.app                              # locate split APKs
adb pull /data/app/.../base.apk .
python3 scripts/manifest_attack_surface.py base.apk -o surface.json
jadx -d src base.apk &  apktool d base.apk -o decoded

# 1. Frida 17: match server to host tools; push + run
frida --version                                              # e.g. 17.x  -> use matching server
adb push frida-server-17.x-android-arm64 /data/local/tmp/frida-server
adb shell "su -c 'chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/frida-server && /data/local/tmp/frida-server &'"

# 2. Trust Burp CA on Android 14/15 (APEX is immutable -> Zygote namespace bind-mount)
bash scripts/android_ca_inject.sh 9a5ba575.0 cacert.pem      # see reference for cert hashing

# 3. Spawn target with universal unpinning + root-detection bypass
frida -U -f com.target.app -l scripts/universal_unpin.js --no-pause

# 4. Hit the exported attack surface from surface.json
bash scripts/component_fuzz.sh com.target.app surface.json

# ---- iOS ----
frida-ios-dump -o app.ipa com.target.app                     # decrypt + pull (jailbroken)
frida -U -f com.target.app -l scripts/ios_bypass_suite.js --no-pause   # JB + pinning + biometric + keychain

# ---- HYBRID ----
file decoded/assets/index.android.bundle                     # "Hermes JavaScript bytecode" => RN
python3 scripts/hermes_triage.py base.apk                    # detect Flutter/RN, drive reFlutter/hermes-dec

OPSEC & Detection (summary)

Deep Dives

• references/environment-interception.md — Rooted/jailbroken lab, Genymotion/AVD, Magisk+Shamiko, Frida 17 breaking changes (bridge removal, frida-pm, frida-compile), gadget mode for non-root, Android 14/15 Conscrypt-APEX CA injection via Zygote namespace bind-mount, universal SSL-pinning bypass (Java TrustManager/OkHttp/Network Security Config/native BoringSSL), root-detection bypass.
• references/android-component-attacks.md — Manifest attack-surface enumeration, exported activity/service/broadcast/provider exploitation, content-provider SQLi & path traversal (CVE-2025-48609 MmsProvider), intent:// redirection to non-exported components, task hijacking (StrandHogg 1.0/2.0 CVE-2020-0096) and TapTrap animation-driven tapjacking (USENIX Security '25), drozer + adb workflows.
• references/webview-deeplink-exploitation.md — addJavascriptInterface RCE, setAllowUniversalAccessFromFileURLs/file:// local-file theft, deep-link → WebView open-redirect/XSS chains, intent:// browsable-activity pivots, OAuth custom-scheme callback hijack (RFC 8252), iOS URL-scheme & Universal Link abuse, one-click browser-to-WebView exploitation.
• references/insecure-storage-crypto.md — Android SharedPreferences/SQLite/internal+external storage, Android Keystore misuse (non-hardware-backed keys, no setUserAuthenticationRequired), iOS Keychain ACLs & keychain_dumper, NSUserDefaults/plist leaks, biometric bypass (BiometricPrompt CryptoObject vs result-only, LAContext evaluatePolicy), hardcoded secrets & Firebase/S3 misconfig, MASVS-STORAGE mapping.
• references/ios-offensive.md — Jailbreak tooling matrix (palera1n checkm8 A8–A11/T2 iOS 15–18.x, Dopamine A8–A16 iOS 15–16.6.1, Dopamine HideJailbreak), JB-detection bypass (Frida stat/fopen/dlopen hooks + Shadow), IPA decryption (frida-ios-dump/bagbak), class-dump/Swift demangling, entitlements & URL-scheme analysis, Frida-version pinning gotchas.
• references/crossplatform-re-instrumentation.md — Flutter Dart-stack interception (reFlutter libflutter.so patch of sslcryptox509sessionverifycertchain, iptables/proxydroid fallback), React Native Hermes bytecode RE (hermes-dec, hbctool patch/reassemble, hermes-decomp, CatalystInstanceImpl.loadScriptFromAssets Frida hook), native .so JNI/JNI_OnLoad analysis in Ghidra/IDA.