Mobile App Penetration Testing
Your mobile app is the most-installed surface area in your business - code, data, and authentication flows are exposed on unmanaged user devices and are routinely targeted by attackers. Pentiq's mobile testing is manually led, not an automated scan: testers work hands-on against iOS, Android, and hybrid apps the way real attackers do - from a jailbroken or rooted device with the binary reversed, looking for stored credentials, weak transport security, and the backend APIs that trust the client more than they should.
What we test
Test the app the way attackers actually take it apart.
Static analysis of the binary, runtime instrumentation on jailbroken/rooted devices, local data storage (Keychain, SharedPreferences, SQLite, plist), network transport (TLS pinning, MITM resilience), authentication and session handling, deeplink and URL-scheme abuse, and the backend APIs reachable from the app.
Why it matters
The pressure this service answers.
A mobile app sits on devices you don't control. Anything baked into the binary - secrets, endpoint URLs, business logic - is recoverable. Anything stored locally without proper protection is harvestable. The only durable defence is a backend that trusts the client as little as possible, and that's where most apps quietly fail.
Findings from this engagement commonly support evidence for SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria and ISO 27001 Annex A.8.29.
Testing activities
Manual, reproducible, peer-reviewed.
Every engagement is scoped through a formal Rules of Engagement, delivered by an in-house Pentiq consultant, peer-reviewed by a senior tester, and risk-rated using CVSS 4.0 where applicable.
- Static analysis of the iOS/Android binary (decompilation, secret search, dependency review)
- Dynamic analysis on jailbroken or rooted devices using Frida instrumentation
- Local data storage audit (Keychain, SharedPreferences, SQLite, plist files, cache)
- Transport security review including TLS pinning and MITM resilience
- Authentication, session-token handling, and biometric / SSO flow testing
- Deeplink, URL-scheme, and intent abuse testing
- Backend API testing reachable from the app (BOLA/BFLA, mass assignment, injection)
- Anti-tampering, jailbreak/root detection, and reverse-engineering resilience checks
Methodologies & frameworks
The standards behind every report.
Every report aligns to the methodologies and frameworks your assessors, customers, and insurers already recognise, so findings are defensible, reproducible, and easy to validate.
- CREST Web Application methodology (extended for mobile clients)
- OWASP Mobile Application Security Testing Guide (MASTG)
- OWASP Mobile Application Security Verification Standard (MASVS)
- NIST SP 800-163 Vetting the Security of Mobile Applications
Outcomes
What you walk away with.
- Identifies exploitable issues across iOS, Android, and hybrid frameworks (React Native, Flutter, Cordova)
- Catches credential leaks via insecure local storage before they become breach data
- Validates TLS pinning and MITM resilience against real on-device attacks
- Surfaces backend-API weaknesses reachable from the mobile client
- Reproduction steps written for the engineer fixing it, not just the auditor reading it
Often paired with
Related services.
Web Application & API
Authenticated and unauthenticated testing of business critical web apps and APIs, mapped to OWASP and beyond.
Learn more →
Hardware & IoT
Hardware tear-down, firmware analysis, and protocol testing across connected device ecosystems.
Learn more →
Cloud Security
Configuration and exposure reviews across AWS, Azure, and Microsoft 365 - including identity, permissions, and data paths.
Learn more →
Get started
Talk to Pentiq about mobile app.
Most enquiries get a same working day response from a Pentiq consultant. We'll scope honestly and tell you when an alternative service is the right answer.