iOS/iPadOS 26 introduces a new compliance challenge. No current physical devices running 26 can be jailbroken, which removes the deep visibility teams rely on to verify how mobile apps handle sensitive data at rest and in transit. Without that runtime evidence, organizations cannot confidently demonstrate alignment with PCI, GDPR, and other data protection requirements.
That gap lands hardest on financial institutions, which are under pressure to ship mobile apps faster than ever. Research shows global downloads of finance apps reached 7.7 billion in 2024, up from 4.6 billion in 2020. That’s a 67% increase in just four years.
Source: Top App by Downloads, Sensor Tower App Performance Insights, iOS & Google Play Combined
Despite heavy investment in AppSec and compliance tooling, many financial apps go live without being tested at runtime. The core issue is that compliance teams are approving mobile apps without seeing how they handle data in a live environment, especially on iOS, where device restrictions block visibility.
Security Frameworks Demand Runtime Evidence
Compliance regulations such as PCI DSS and GDPR require financial institutions to protect sensitive data—whether it’s stored on a device or transmitted across mobile networks. These laws set the baseline for encryption, authentication, and access control.
Security frameworks and guidelines like OWASP MASVS provide the technical direction to achieve those outcomes. They define what
secure mobile apps should do encrypt data at rest and in transit, enforce session management, and minimize data retention risks.
Compliance validation often stops short of proving those protections to work under real-world runtime conditions. Without dynamic and interactive testing, teams can’t verify whether encryption, certificate pinning, and access controls actually hold up once the app is live, leaving organizations compliant on paper but exposed in practice.
Static Checks Aren’t Enough
Most financial services organizations rely on:
- Static application security testing (SAST)
- Software composition analysis (SCA)
- Manual compliance reviews
- Periodic penetration testing
These methods can detect insecure code and outdated libraries, but they do not reflect how the application behaves once deployed. Critical issues—such as token reuse, unencrypted local storage, or misconfigured SDKs—often go undetected until there is a data exposure incident or compliance failure.
That’s why testing for these protections during development is critical. Corellium Viper enables AppSec teams to run deep, dynamic testing within virtualized iOS environments, while MATRIX automatically maps findings to frameworks like OWASP, GDPR, PCI DSS, and HIPAA, helping teams validate compliance early and prove runtime security with every build.
Runtime Testing on Android Is Still Feasible
On Android, security teams and pentesters can often gain deeper visibility by accessing file system activity, local log persistence, and session behavior during login, logout, or app crashes. While not all Android devices are easily rooted, it’s generally possible to find compatible versions or use emulators that enable this level of access. This visibility allows teams to validate PCI DSS and OWASP MASVS requirements for encryption at rest, secure key management, and log handling.
iOS: Runtime Visibility Is Closed Off
Physical iPhones have been locked down since iOS 17, with iPads following soon after, blocking jailbreaks and direct runtime access on hardware. File system inspection is restricted, memory access is encrypted, and instrumentation is severely limited as well. Physical jailbroken devices running iOS 16 or earlier are now outdated and no longer reflect production environments.
As a result, testing teams cannot observe how iOS apps manage sensitive data in real-world use, making it impossible to confirm that security controls are working as intended. In virtualized environments like Corellium, that access is restored, giving AppSec teams the visibility they’ve lost on physical devices.
The Risk: Assumed Compliance, No Verification
When runtime behavior cannot be observed, compliance becomes a matter of trust rather than evidence. Security teams may assume encryption is working, or that logs are properly sanitized, but they have no way to confirm it.
This gap creates regulatory, reputational, and operational risk. Many institutions are signing off on mobile apps without knowing:
- What data is stored locally
- How third-party SDKs behave
- Whether tokens are invalidated correctly
- If logs persist or expose sensitive data
Common Mobile App Risks in Finance:
- Improper credential usage
- Inadequate supply chain security
- Insecure authentication / authorization
- Insufficient input/output validation
- Insecure data storage
By leveraging the OWASP Mobile Top 10, security teams can benchmark financial mobile apps against the industry’s most prevalent threats and weaknesses.
What Real Security Validation Looks Like
Effective mobile AppSec programs validate behavior continuously—not just during development, but across every release cycle. That includes:
- Dynamic testing across Android and iOS versions
- Monitoring SDK behavior and network activity
- Inspecting session and token management
- Verifying encryption at rest and in motion
- Integrating PCI requirements and MASVS testing into CI/CD pipelines
This level of insight is only possible with real devices or advanced virtualization. Simulators and static scans cannot reproduce the conditions that expose these failures.
Runtime Security Is Table Stakes for Financial Apps
A mobile app can pass PCI DSS and still leak personally identifiable information.
It can meet OWASP MASVS requirements and still mishandle authentication.
It can achieve high test coverage and still expose accounts to takeover risk.
In regulated environments like banking and payments, security must be demonstrated through observed behavior—not assumed through documentation.
From Compliance to Confidence: Observing Real App Behavior
In mobile finance, the app is the perimeter. It processes identities, transactions, and sensitive data. If its behavior cannot be observed, especially on iPhone and iPad where root access is restricted, there is no way to confirm it is secure.
Shipping a mobile app is not a milestone. Proving it behaves securely is.
Viper, powered by Corellium’s Mobile Security Platform, gives financial security teams direct, dynamic access to iOS app behavior—without relying on outdated physical jailbreaks. Teams can inspect memory, filesystem, keychain, and live execution in modern iOS environments, including iOS 26, to uncover issues static tools miss.
When paired with MATRIX, Viper automates testing against PCI DSS, OWASP MASVS, and GDPR controls—turning runtime observations into structured, auditable findings. Together, they provide the depth and evidence financial institutions need to validate compliance and secure mobile apps at scale.
Ready to validate your financial app beyond checklists? Schedule a meeting with a Corellium expert and see what compliance alone can’t.
Keep reading
Free eBook: The Mobile Security Playbook
Corellium 7.7 Release: Enabling Risk-Based Mobile App Security
