Mobile App Pentesting Process | A 10-Day Security Testing [Guide]

Mobile is the latest battleground for cybersecurity. Vulnerabilities can lie within mobile apps themselves, acting as gateways for malicious actors and malware to exploit. Staying ahead of these ever-evolving mobile security threats requires constant vigilance and a proactive approach. Penetration testing (pentesting) is a critical step in securing an application, meticulously dissecting an app's inner workings to identify vulnerabilities before bad actors can. 

Security pentesting exercises vary wildly in both scope and frequency from organization to organization, from semi-annual major cross-team pentesting events to singular mobile app assessments at specific app release stages or for ad-hoc standards compliance checks. For a typical mobile pentest that includes an iOS and Android binary, they are approximately 2 weeks (10 business days) long. This guide walks through a 10-day mobile app security testing process, detailing key phases, techniques, and how automation accelerates testing. Discover the intricate details of pentesting that contribute to its extended duration and specialized skill set needs, plus how automation can greatly accelerate the work of mobile security teams.  

Breaking Down the Mobile App Pentesting Process: A 10-Day Journey

Here's a breakdown of a typical mobile app pentesting process, highlighting the key activities that unfold throughout the two-week period: 

How Automation Enhances Mobile App Security Testing

While this 10-day breakdown showcases the importance and intricacies of mobile pentesting, it also highlights its time-consuming nature. While crucial for security, the time commitment can be a challenge. This is where security testing automation can be of great benefit. Automation accelerates mundane, repetitive setup and baseline security testing so that skilled pentesters can focus their time on more advanced testing techniques. 

The Corellium mobile security testing platform includes both MATRIX™ (mobile automated testing and reporting interface) technology and a powerful pentesting toolbox for advanced manual security testing work and remediation development. 

Here’s how Corellium simplifies the work of mobile security testers and can save businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. 

1. Lower Costs – Unlike other solutions and services that are priced per test or per app, Corellium provides a cost-efficient.
2. Accelerate Testing – Alleviate up to 50% of the mundane, routine work required of pentesters for every test run. Execute hundreds of security tests in minutes. 
3. Mitigate Risks – Outsourcing to service providers introduces risks for your mobile app IP and security policies, while Corellium empowers you to do everything in-house. 
4. Increase Consistency – Establish baseline test reports to increase test coverage consistency and reproducibility and more easily identify security vulnerability regressions. 
5. Test Continuously – Incorporate continuous security testing into your CI/CD flows to shift security left and achieve DevSecOps for mobile. 
6. Facilitate Compliance – Automatically generated AppSec reporting facilitates standards adherence and compliance submissions that are otherwise cumbersome and time-consuming. 

Unlock Superior Mobile Security Testing with Corellium

Equip your security teams with unprecedented tools for both manual and automated testing, freeing up valuable engineering time and saving money. Discover the power of Corellium’s high-fidelity virtual devices and spin-up near limitless combinations of device and OS with one-click jailbreak/root access. Book a meeting today to see how we can streamline your processes and reduce costs.