Mobile Application Security
A practical sequence for engineers reviewing an Android or iOS application — from the category overview through the specific standards and CWEs, to a hands-on interactive review.
- Audience
- Mobile engineers, or anyone doing a security pass on an Android or iOS app before release.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Depth
- Moderate — nine steps, two of them optional product pages at the end.
Prerequisites
- Comfort reading Android/iOS build configuration (manifest, entitlements, Info.plist) is helpful but not required.
Learning Objectives
- Understand static analysis's actual detection scope for APK/IPA artifacts, and where it stops.
- Recognize the OWASP Mobile Top 10 categories and the specific CWEs and ATT&CK techniques behind them.
- Complete a structured, interactive review of a real app.
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Steps
1. Mobile Application Security
OpenCategory
The category overview frames everything that follows — what a mobile assessment actually covers.
2. APK Static Analysis, Explained
OpenArticle
What APK static analysis actually discovers, and just as importantly, where it falls short.
3. IPA Security Testing, Explained
OpenArticle
The iOS equivalent — entitlements, signing, and embedded frameworks are a different attack surface than Android's manifest model.
4. OWASP Mobile Top 10
OpenReference Collection
The ten categories every mobile finding in this library maps back to.
5. CWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials
OpenReference
The single most common, highest-yield mobile finding — hardcoded credentials extractable from any binary.
6. T1437: Standard Application Layer Protocol
OpenReference
Understand the attacker technique that weak network-layer hardening on a mobile app actually enables.
7. Mobile App Security Review Checklist
OpenDecision Center
Apply everything above as a structured, interactive review across ten categories — the hands-on step this path builds toward.
8. APK Security Scanner
OptionalProduct
Automate the Android-specific parts of this checklist against a real APK.
9. IPA Security Scanner
OptionalProduct
Automate the iOS-specific parts of this checklist against a real IPA.
Related Learning Paths
Application Security Foundations
The starting sequence for engineers who are new to application security at Strata — what gets measured, against which standards, and where the platform's own reasoning about priority comes from.
Vulnerability Prioritization
A focused sequence on the specific question of what to fix first — the standards involved, why severity alone is an incomplete answer, and a tool to apply the reasoning to a real finding.