Your Ultimate Guide to Android Pentesting

Introduction

The app market is predicted to experience a CAGR of 8.83% from 2022 to 2027, expecting to reach $673.80 billion by 2027. Over the years, Android built-in applications have become an increasingly popular mode for businesses to offer consumers a palm-friendly secure experience on every visit. But, also and unfortunately, most of the Android apps are under constant cyber threats; around 75% of them harbour at least one vulnerability. Disturbingly, 25% of mobile apps contain a severe security issue, underscoring the necessity of Android pentesting.

Overview of Android Pentesting

Android app security testing is a structured approach to uncover and remediate potential threats in mobile applications. The testing phase aims to safeguard the app architecture and protect the sensitive information it contains before malicious actors can exploit any weaknesses. Regular Android penetration testing also allows the app makers to stay compliant with security regulations.

Importance of Android pen testing

As Android apps are becoming the easiest and fastest way for consumers to access a multitude of services at their fingertips - they’re also becoming vulnerable to cyber threats. From online shopping to ticket booking to social networking to entertainment to education- there is an Android app for almost everything. As of 2024, Android apps command around 4 billion users, making them a colossal gold mine of sensitive data and information. It’s little wonder that hackers, who are always snooping for our sensitive data, are constantly targeting the Android apps.
Android app penetration testing serves as a defence barrier here, protecting the apps from several dangerous hacking attacks - like butter overflow, code injection, and other complex malware invasions.

Steps of Android penetration testing

• Threat modelling This step includes prioritisation and identification of the dangers and hidden threats in Android applications. Threat modelling also implies understanding the possible attacks and spotting the weaknesses using various penetration testing tools. Some of the most popular android security testing tools are- Attack Trees, STRIDE (Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege) model, and Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs).


• Assessment and Evaluation The pentester scrutinises the application's functionality before and after deployment, searching for security flaws, entry points, and potential gaps. Some popular and well-known API scanning tools include Qualys, OpenVAS, and Nessus. These are widely used for scanning devices or applications to identify vulnerabilities.


• Exploitation In this step, pen testers apply various tools and techniques for discovering and exploiting flaws just like malicious hackers do. However, unlike hackers, a pentester aims to strengthen the security posture of Android applications through exploitation.


• Reporting After the exploitation phase, a comprehensive report is compiled detailing all identified vulnerabilities, the tests conducted, and the potential impact on the application. Remediation steps are also outlined, with vulnerabilities classified by their severity.
  
• Remedial measures The vulnerability report is the key to guiding development teams to resolve the issues uncovered in the Android applications during the pentest. A follow-up scan is conducted by the security experts to assess the success of the applied patches.

Tools for Android penetration testing

Some of the popular tools that are used for Android application pentesting are as follows:

• 1. MobSF: This is an abbreviated form of Mobile Security Framework, an all-in-one application security solution for both Android and iOS platforms.
• 2. Apktool: This tool helps to decompile the locks so that it can have the ability to reconstruct the resources after they are decoded. The work becomes easier with automation and project-like file structures of the repetitive operations such as creating APKs.
• 3. Drozer: It is an Android security testing framework that allows security researchers to find potential vulnerabilities in Android applications.
• 4. Androbugs: A trusted static code analysis tool for identifying security issues in Android applications.
• 5. QARK: The tool automatically scans Android applications to detect security flaws.

Conclusion

Android app penetration testing is identified to be an effective and crucial procedure in ensuring the overall safety of apps and users’ data against cyber attacks. Organisations need to focus on strengthening the overall security factors for enhanced application protection by incorporating stringent security measures.
At DataSpace Academy, our tailor-made penetration testing certification course will help you gain hands-on experience on the key skills and tools deployed in Android pentesting. We also offer internship and placement assistance to boost your employment prospects in the highly competitive and dynamic job market.