Reverse engineering is a method used to achieve various targets. It forms the basis of many forms of cyber attacks. For example an application has to be reverse engineered:
- To understand an application and how it works.
- To change the way the application responds.
- To inject something malicious.
- To identify the app's security features.
- To bypass or disable the app's security, etc.
For mobile applications, it's like a Swiss army tool for hackers. Among security experts, reverse engineering is referred to as a cat and mouse game, 'If an application exists, it can be reverse engineered'
What does reverse engineering do?
It's basically disassembling an application to understand how it works. With access to the source code of any application, it can be used for various legitimate purposes. But for the hackers it's a lot of information to exploit. In India, reverse engineering is one of the top 3 threats to the BFSI Sector. The most common misuses being:
- Cloning a free version of paid app
- Creating malware infused app
- Data theft
- Monetary frauds
- Access proprietary information
Who's at risk?
A normal application is not equipped well enough, as normally it is very difficult, to prevent Reverse Engineering. It requires advanced capabilities which can prevent all forms of reverse engineering. Generally all apps are susceptible to reverse engineering, some more than others. It's a common technique to attack corporate applications considering the amount of data that could be gained and further exploited. According to OWASP, "Code written in languages / frameworks that allow for dynamic introspection at runtime (Java, .NET, Objective C, Swift) are particularly at risk for reverse engineering."
Impact of reverse engineering on businesses
The source code is the core of your business. Corporates have to pay a very high price for any attack on their apps and not just financial there are losses like
- Theft of Intellectual Property
- Identity Theft
- Compromised Backend Systems
- Reputational Damage
- Legal proceedings costing time and money
How to be safe?
It is a widely recognised threat in cyberspace. RBI has issued guidelines to prevent reverse engineering based attack, OWASP has a section dedicated to it, the BFSI Sector has policy standards for it. A robust and comprehensive implementation around it, from the perspective of security experts, is what could be considered an effective protection from Reverse Engineering. AppProtectt provides such comprehensive Mobile App Security by enabling RunTime Self Protection for Mobile Apps which continuously adapts to the changing threat profiles posed by reverse engineering. AppProtectt achieves this by AI & Behavioral science and keeps mobile apps shielded.
How does AppProtectt work against Reverse Engineering?
AppProtectt has a four layered approach to tackle a reverse engineering attack:
- Firstly it blocks any reverse engineering tool that could compromise the app
- In the case of an already reverse engineered app, it obfuscates the data to avoid any leak of information
- As another layer, when an attacker runs the repacked app, AppProtectt detects and informs the server which dishonors it's request
- And finally, it offers you to blacklist any such users or devices that led to the attack.
Stay protectt-ed!