Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST) tools help DevOps teams to identify and remediate security vulnerabilities in the mobile applications they build. MAST tools combine static and dynamic analysis, as well as automatic and manual testing methods, in order to detect vulnerabilities such as insecure data storage, insufficient encryption, and susceptibility to malware attacks, among others. When a MAST solution identifies security issues, it reports those issues back to the development team—often in real-time—so that they can quickly and effectively remediate the vulnerability, improving the overall security of their application before it goes to market.
Improving security and reducing risk are critical when it comes to developing mobile apps, which are used every day by consumers and businesses alike to store and access critical, sensitive information. The breadth and depth of data stored in mobile apps makes them a lucrative target for cybercriminals, who regularly exploit vulnerabilities in apps to steal the user’s data, or use the compromised app as a launch pad from which they can breach further areas of the user’s network. To prevent such a breach from occurring, it’s critical that development teams implement security testing throughout the software development lifecycle—and a strong MAST tool can help them do this.
In this article, we’ll explore the top 7 MAST tools designed to help you identify and remediate vulnerabilities in your mobile applications. We’ll highlight the key use cases and features of each solution, including automatic and manual scanning, application behavior monitoring, vulnerability reporting, and integrations.
AppKnox is an application security provider that offers a broad range of application security testing solutions, including Mobile Application Security, their MAST solution. Mobile Application Security is an automated security analysis solution that integrate within your SDLC, which allows your team to focus on other aspects of app deployment.
AppKnox Mobile Application Security uses a combination of SAST, DAST, and API scans to provide a thorough security assessment of your mobile app, utilizing static and dynamic testing methods as well as endpoint scanning. Upon completion of each security assessment, AppKnox generates a detailed report that outlines the severity of detected vulnerabilities, their business impact, and relevant regulatory and compliance issues. This provides a clear understanding of the security weaknesses and helps prepare for any necessary remediation measures.
In addition to its automated security checks, AppKnox also offers manual penetration testing services performed by a dedicated team of security experts. These professionals can help consolidate and provide guidance on vulnerabilities discovered during the automated testing process. After the security analysis, AppKnox offers a remediation call service, where their security researchers explain the vulnerability findings, discuss industry best practices, and explore various mitigation methods to help ensure that your mobile applications are as secure as possible.
Checkmarx for Mobile AST (MAST) is an enterprise-grade platform designed to integrate security with DevOps for iOS, Android, and backend services. By identifying and addressing code vulnerabilities during the early stages of the Software Development Life Cycle, it aims to reduce the time spent on remediation.
Checkmarx for MAST offers comprehensive mobile app coverage, ensuring high-quality AppSec results through a combination of interactive analysis, static analysis, composition analysis, and manual assessments of mobile source code. Checkmarx for MAST also provides a single management platform, offering organizations a holistic view of their software exposure and allowing them to prioritize and mitigate security risks.
In addition, Checkmarx’s dedicated team of security experts assists in ordering and prioritizing vulnerabilities to optimize remediation efforts and offer guidance on query customization for improved results. With easy automation, Checkmarx for Mobile AST readily integrates with SDLC tools, IDEs, bug tracking systems, and CI servers, making deployment and integration seamless. The platform accommodates various implementation options, including private cloud and on-premises solutions, to ensure rapid secure code development.
Data Theorem’s Mobile Secure is a comprehensive mobile application security platform for businesses. It specializes in finding and resolving critical security vulnerabilities across an organization’s entire mobile application tech stack. The platform achieves this by conducting continuous dynamic runtime analysis on each app release, leveraging static, dynamic, and runtime analysis of every app binary build.
Key features of Mobile Secure include static, dynamic, and runtime analysis of mobile apps, covering not only back-end APIs but also third-party APIs. The platform auto-triages results, identifying high-risk issues and providing priority alerts via Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email. It is designed to ensure app store readiness by reviewing app store blockers for Apple App Store and Google Play. Additionally, the platform generates audit-ready compliance reports with a single click.
As well as discovering vulnerabilities, Mobile Secure streamlines the remediation process by providing recommendations and secure code samples to help developers address security findings more quickly. It also integrates with CI/CD tools to enable a seamless DevSecOps solution throughout the release cycle. Finally, the platform supports user access roles, allowing managers, security team members, and developers to work together in an efficient, organized manner within the security environment.
EShard’s esChecker is a mobile application security testing tool that focuses on automated testing within the CI/CD process. esChecker performs security testing at the binary level, accounting for third-party SDKs that source code reviews might overlook. By implementing unique dynamic analysis features, esChecker executes mobile application binaries on unsafe devices, providing immediate feedback on app protections.
esCheckerl offers a Record and Replay feature that allows for targeted dynamic security testing and reduces the risk of false positives. Users can record testing sequences, target critical user journeys, and replay test evidence to assess security protections in various attack scenarios. The platform also generates immediate feedback following each scan through comprehensive, graphical reports, which can be used not only for vulnerability identification and remediation, but also to demonstrate compliance with chosen security policies or standards.
esChecker aligns with the OWASP Mobile Application Security Verification Standard (MASVS) as a reference for setting mobile app security policies, and the platform generates testing reports that check compliance with the OWASP MASVS. Finally, to support an agile development process and automate security testing throughout the SDLC, esChecker integrates with popular CI/CD frameworks such as Bitrise, Jenkins, CircleCI, Gitlab, and Github.
OpenText’s Fortify on Demand is a cloud-powered application security platform designed to help businesses to pinpoint and resolve vulnerabilities in their applications—including mobile apps. Through its engaging web interface, users can seamlessly schedule security audits and gain insights via intuitive dashboards and detailed reports.
Fortify on Demand offers a multifaceted security assessment portfolio that enables the platform to analyze apps on various levels. Its Static security evaluations assist developers in identifying and rectifying vulnerabilities present in the source, binary, or bytecode. Its open-source software composition analysis delves into third-party components, leveraging natural language processing to keep a vigilant eye on sources like GitHub commits and advisory portals for emerging risks. The platform’s dynamic web application assessments blend both automated and manual tactics to dissect intricate web applications and services.
With Fortify on Demand Connect, a secure site-to-site VPN can be established for internal web apps. The platform also offers dynamic API security evaluations and all-encompassing mobile app security reviews.
Fortify on Demand also provides users with over 100 hours of secure development training resources. These are bolstered by their strong support framework, which offers round-the-clock chat assistance, streamlined ticketing, and dedicated customer success managers for larger clients.
HCL AppScan is an application security suite designed for developers, DevOps, security teams, and CISOs. This comprehensive suite offers multiple deployment options, including on-premises, on cloud, and hybrid solutions. HCL AppScan aids in quickly identifying and remediating application vulnerabilities—including those in mobile apps—throughout the software development lifecycle.
HCL AppScan supports various types of analysis, such as Dynamic Analysis (DAST) for testing applications and APIs while they are running, Static Analysis (SAST) for detecting vulnerabilities in source code earlier in the development process, Interactive Analysis (IAST) for monitoring applications and APIs without slowing down development, and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) for identifying vulnerabilities introduced by open-source components. The suite seamlessly integrates with existing build environments, DevOps tools, and integrated development environments (IDEs), ensuring a smooth application security testing experience.
Enhanced by machine learning capabilities, HCL AppScan offers comprehensive coverage and high levels of accuracy in scanning, while reducing false positives. Additionally, the AppScan Slider allows users to balance speed and coverage, catering to different phases of the DevOps pipeline. Finally, after analyzing the application, HCL AppScan aggregates and correlates findings from multiple testing technologies, providing evidence of exploitability and assisting in prioritizing remediation efforts.
Snyk is an application security platform that combines Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) to help developers and security teams quickly identify, prioritize, and fix security issues in their code and open-source dependencies. The platform supports Android and iOS development languages, allowing for seamless integration into Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST) processes. With a focus on context-driven prioritization, Snyk helps security teams assess risk and address high-impact issues while providing developers with a clear path to resolution.
Snyk offers highly accurate scans and suggested code fixes by leveraging symbolic and generative AI, machine learning, and expert input from Snyk security researchers. The platform also emphasizes automation, enabling businesses to streamline their security processes by automatically applying fixes, integrating with other systems, and using APIs.
The platform supports unlimited scanning without code line restrictions, enabling development and security teams to proactively address vulnerabilities, while advanced reporting features within the platform allow organizations to visualize and quantify their security posture, satisfying regulatory requirements and tracking improvements over time. Finally, Snyk offers robust integrations with various tools throughout the development lifecycle, making it easy to implement and use.
Everything You Need To Know About Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST) Tools (FAQs)
What Is Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST)?
Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST) is the process of identifying security vulnerabilities in mobile applications. To achieve this, MAST tools combine the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) methods used in the broader application security space, but they adapt those techniques so they can be applied to mobile applications.
MAST solutions then complement those techniques with manual testing and behavioral analysis. Some MAST tools also offer recommendations on how best to remediate security issues to reduce risk. Reducing risk is the aim of the game when it comes to application security testing—not only for individuals, but for businesses, too. Mobile devices are commonplace in today’s hybrid-remote workplace, with employees using mobile apps to store and access sensitive corporate data.
If one of those apps had a vulnerability in it, a threat actor could exploit that vulnerability, tapping into the sensitive data stored in the application. They could even use the compromised app as a platform from which to jump to other areas of the network, stealing more data as they went.
Unfortunately, these types of breaches happen all too often today, and mobile devices are becoming an increasingly popular target for cybercriminals due to the fact that they can access multiple different data sources (e.g., email, social media, direct messaging platforms), are used in user authentication processes, and can provide the attacker access to lots of extended functions (e.g., camera, microphone). This means that MAST is more important now than ever before.
Implementing MAST enables developers to identify and remediate vulnerabilities before their applications are ever released to the public—as well as continuously scan their apps for new vulnerabilities after release. This helps avoid costly data breaches, and also makes it easier (and cheaper!) for developers to fix any issues that crop up.
How Do MAST Tools Work?
MAST solutions combine a number of different tools and techniques for vulnerability scanning. Let’s take a look at each of them.
- Static Application Security Testing (SAST). SAST is a vulnerability scanning technique that automatically analyzes the source code, binary, and byte code of an application, without executing it (i.e., while it’s “static”). SAST known as “white box testing”, which means that it takes into account knowledge of the application’s internal design. It’s used to identify vulnerabilities early in the CI/CD pipeline, in the programming and testing phases.
- Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST). DAST is a vulnerability scanning technique that scans the application during runtime. It does this by simulating real-world attack scenarios, and analyzing the application’s responses to those attacks. Because DAST analyzes the application externally, without any knowledge of the app’s internal design, it’s known as “black box testing”. DAST tools require a functioning application to run, which means they are typically used later on in the development lifecycle, during the pre-production and production phases.
- Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST). IAST is a vulnerability scanning technique that scans apps and APIs in real time, whilst they’re being run (or interacted with) by a real user or an automated test runner. IAST tools test the code behind all of the functionality that the tester interacts with, and links any findings (similar to those a DAST solution may find) to the source code for easier remediation, just like a SAST tool does. Because of this, IAST is known as “grey box” testing. It’s commonly used in the production phase of the development lifecycle.
- Manual Testing. Manual testing involves a human tester interacting with the application as though they were a potential attacker trying to compromise it. It’s often used alongside automated testing to spot design flaws or vulnerabilities that an automated tool might miss due to lack of understanding of an app’s business logic and unique use cases.
- Fuzz Testing. Fuzz testing involves automatically injecting invalid, unexpected, or random data into the application, then analyzing how it responds to those inputs. A black box testing technique, “fuzzing” tries to overwhelm the application to expose crashes, failures, or resource leaks.
Businesses often use a combination of these methods when testing the security of their mobile applications, for example, using an automated tool to conduct the majority of their security testing quickly and efficiently, then using manual tests to fill in the gaps and identify logic and intent issues.
What Features Should You Look For In A MAST Tool?
There are a few key features that you should look for in any strong MAST solution:
- Automated mobile application security testing: Your chosen solution should use a variety of—if not all of—the software tools outlined above to automatically and continuously test and analyze your application for potential vulnerabilities. Automatic testing is cost-effective and efficient, and they’re easily integrated into the CI/CD pipeline so don’t slow down the overall production of your app.
- Penetration testing: If your application needs to built in line with regulatory requirements, you should look for a MAST solution that offers pentesting. Pentesting involves both manual and software-based techniques, and is usually carried out by a third party in order to test your application for something very specific. This makes it well-suited to ensuring your app is meeting regulatory requirements.
- Continuous testing: The best MAST solutions continuously test applications to discover new vulnerabilities. Attackers are always finding new ways to compromise code, so it’s likely that your app won’t be as secure five years down the line as when you first built it—unless, of course, you’ve been continuously testing it.
- Integration: Your chosen solution needs to integrate seamlessly with your CI/CD pipeline, including any other development, tracking, and testing tools you’re using. It also needs to support the programming languages you’re using to develop the app.
- Testing across multiple device types: You need to choose a MAST tool that carries out multiple tests across different device types, to account for differences in the way that different devices might display or run the app.
