Why Mobile App Hardening Is Essential for Mobile App Security

App hardening plays a crucial role in mobile app security. It makes it more difficult for attackers and reverse engineers to manipulate and reverse engineer your app. This article will explain how app hardening enhances mobile app safety, with technical details provided where appropriate.

1. Code Obfuscation: The technique of obscuring source code is called obfuscation. It renames methods, variables, and classes to make their meanings obscure. ProGuard (for Android) and Obfuscation Options in Xcode (for iOS) can be used.
2. Binary Protection: Implement binary-level security to protect against reverse engineering. The binary code is complicated to decipher using control flow obfuscation and binary code encryption.
3. Anti-Debugging and Anti-Tampering: Implement anti-debugging to detect if the app is in a sandbox or debugger. Anti-tampering tools can notify you if your app binary has been modified. Mechanisms may include breaking points and monitoring an app’s environment.
4. Root & Jailbreak Detection: Root detection will help you determine if the mobile device is jailbroken on iOS or rooted on Android. Both conditions increase the chance that an app can be tampered with and compromise mobile app security. The techniques may include checking the system calls and files related to jailbreaks or rooting.
5. Certificate Binding: Use certificate pinning so that your app only communicates to trusted servers. This pinning is done by comparing an SSL certificate with a public key.
6. Secure Startup: Integrity checks will protect your app’s initial execution. Check that your app’s binary or resources weren’t tampered with during launch.
7. Secure data storage: It is essential to encrypt sensitive data and the executable binary of an app and its resources. Secure data storage keeps attackers from manipulating or removing sensitive information directly from an app’s binary.
8. App Sandboxing: Sandboxing is a platform-specific feature that allows you to restrict an app’s access to device resources and data. Sandboxing is available on iOS.
9. Secure Key management: Protect encryption keys. To make keys challenging to retrieve, place them in a secure hardware module, such as the Android Keystore or Apple’s Secure Enclave, if they are available.
10. Custom Security Tests: Integrity checks can be performed during runtime by implementing custom security measures. Security checks can involve comparing the hashes or values of critical components with known good values.
11. Behavior-Based Detection: Use behavioral analysis to detect abnormal behavior in your app. You can receive alerts if the app starts performing unanticipated actions or accessing restricted content.
12. Self-Repairing Mechanisms: Self-healing mechanisms can be developed to detect tampering and restore an app’s original state.
13. Secure Update mechanisms: Updates should be delivered securely to avoid attackers replacing your app’s malicious version. Use secure channels and code signing for updates.

App hardening to enhance mobile app security should be an ongoing process. App hardening is needed continually because attackers are constantly evolving their methods. These strategies can be implemented differently depending on whether you use Android or iOS and how your app is designed.

For more information about mobile safety, I recommend you visit OWASP and Zimperium Mobile Security Glossary.