0608, 2025

DeepSec 2025 Training: The Mobile Playbook – A Guide to iOS and Android App Security (hybrid – in person or online) – Sven Schleier

Sanna/ August 6, 2025/ Training/ 0 comments

This intensive two-day course equips you with practical skills for identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in mobile apps across both Android and iOS. You’ll analyze a mix of real-world apps and custom training apps using tools like Frida, Burp Suite, jadx and other open-source tools. By the end of the training, you’ll know how to: intercept and analyze any type of network traffic in mobile apps, even when SSL pinning is used, bypass protection mechanisms such as root/jailbreak detection, decompile APKs and perform manual source code reviews, reverse engineer Swift-based iOS applications and apply a thorough methodology based on the OWASP Mobile Application Security Testing Guide (MASTG). The labs cover static and dynamic analysis, reverse engineering, and Software Composition Analysis (SCA), all through hands-on exercises. No need to bring your own devices — each participant

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0506, 2023

DeepSec 2023 Training: Mobile Security Testing Guide Hands-On – Sven Schleier

Sanna/ June 5, 2023/ Training

Software cannot be tested by machines alone. In order to identify security weaknesses, you will need the right toolchain and expertise on how to use the tools. Therefore, we asked Sven Schleier to give you a two-day deep dive into mobile security testing. Embark on an exciting journey to master the art of hacking mobile apps! Join this course led by Sven Schleier, where you’ll learn how to analyze mobile apps for security vulnerabilities. With dynamic testing, static analysis, and reverse engineering techniques, you’ll uncover the secrets of app attacks. Dive into Android and iOS testing, using virtualized devices provided by Corellium. Each student will get a rooted Android and jail broken iOS instance for the duration of the training and the only pre-requisite is having a laptop with macOS, Windows, or Linux. Explore

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0109, 2020

DeepSec 2020 Talk: Security Model Of Endpoint Devices – Martin Kacer

Sanna/ September 1, 2020/ Conference

Have you ever asked these questions? You are using the latest mobile and using your laptop with the latest and patched OS, running antivirus: Do you need to worry about security? Isn’t there still something broken in the entire security and permission model? Why can the desktop application, that is not an internet browser, access and communicate by using any IP address? Why can the application access your whole filesystem and collect the files from there? Why can an android app with internet permission communicate using any arbitrary IP, even a private one? Why can the app communicate by using different domains? Isn’t the app market ecosystem creating a friendly environment for botnets? This talk will shed some light on these issues and propose some mitigation strategy. We have asked Martin a few more

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0911, 2018

ROOTS 2018: How Android’s UI Security is Undermined by Accessibility – Anatoli Kalysch

Sanna/ November 9, 2018/ Conference, ROOTS

Android’s accessibility API was designed to assist users with disabilities, or temporarily preoccupied users unable to interact with a device, e.g., while driving a car. Nowadays, many Android apps rely on the accessibility API for other purposes, including apps like password managers but also malware. From a security perspective, the accessibility API is precarious as it undermines an otherwise strong principle of sandboxing in Android that separates apps. By means of an accessibility service, apps can interact with the UI elements of another app, including reading from its screen and writing to its text fields. As a consequence, design shortcomings in the accessibility API and other UI features such as overlays have grave security implications. This talk will provide a critical perspective on the current state of Android accessibility and selected UI security features.

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1710, 2017

DeepSec Talk 2017: Normal Permissions In Android: An Audiovisual Deception – Constantinos Patsakis

Sanna/ October 17, 2017/ Conference, Security

The Marshmallow version was a significant revision for Android. Among the new features that were introduced one of the most significant is, without any doubt, the runtime permission. The permission model was totally redesigned, categorising the permissions into four main categories. The main concept of this categorisation is how much risk a user is exposed to when permissions are granted. Therefore, normal permissions imply the least risk for the user. However, in this case, there are some important issues. Firstly, these permissions are not actually displayed to the user; they are not displayed upon installation and the user needs to dig into several menus to find them for each app. Most importantly though, these permissions cannot be revoked. Unlike permissions categorized as dangerous, where the user can grant or revoke a permission whenever deemed

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1610, 2017

DeepSec2017 Workshop: Mobile App Attack – Sneha Rajguru

Sanna/ October 16, 2017/ Conference, Training

The world’s gone mobile. Mobile devices have surpassed the standard computer (i.e. desktop) installation multiple times. In turn this means that you will encounter these devices most definitely when testing or implementing security measures. Usually adversaries do not use the platform itself. They use software to gain entry. This is why mobiles apps are the most preferred way of delivering the attacks today. Understanding the finer details of mobile app attacks is soon becoming an essential skill for penetration testers as well as for the app developers & testers. This is why we have a special training for you at DeepSec 2017. So, if you are an Android or an iOS user, a developer, a security analyst, a mobile pen-tester, or just a mobile security enthusiast the training ‘Mobile App Attack’ is of definite

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0911, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Obfuscated Financial Fraud Android Malware: Detection And Behavior Tracking – Inseung Yang

Sanna/ November 9, 2016/ Conference, Development, Internet, Report, Security

In Korea in particular, hackers have distributed sophisticated and complex financial fraud android malware through various means of distribution, such as SMS phishing, Google play, compromised web servers and home routers (IoT). In some cases, both smartphone and PC users are targeted simultaneously. Inseung Yang and his team collect mobile android malware via an automated analysis system, detect obfuscations and malicious packer apps. In his presentation Inseung Yang will describe trends of malicious android apps and obfuscated mobile malware in Korea. He’ll explain the policy methods for Korean mobile banking and the attack methods used by hackers, f.ex. the stealing of certifications, fake banking apps that require the  security numbers issued to users when they open their accounts, Automatic Response Service(ARS) phishing attacks in conjunction with Call Forwarding, and the requesting of the One Time Password(OTP) number. But

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0602, 2016

DeepSec Video: File Format Fuzzing in Android – Giving a Stagefright to the Android Installer

René Pfeiffer/ February 6, 2016/ Conference, Security

The Stagefright exploit haunts the Android platform. The vulnerability was published in Summer 2015. It gives attackers a way to infect Android smartphones by using multimedia files such as pictures, text, and videos. This is a perfect vector since most people will look at media instantly. Dr. Aleksandr Yampolskiy gave a presentation at DeepSec 2010 about malicious software hidden in multimedia (the talk was aptly titled Malware goes to the Movies). So what if there are more bugs like this in the Android platform? Enter fuzzing technology. Alexandru Blanda spoke at DeepSec2015 about fuzzing on the Android platform. This approach can be used to uncover different types of vulnerabilities inside multiple core system components of the Android OS. Since these vulnerabilities affect critical components of the Android system, the impact of the results will

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