Prevent threat actors from tampering with the applications you create by adding protections to your AI-powered DevOps Platform.
Mobile Application Owners are charged with efficiently developing applications for iOS. The combination of digital transformation and consumer demand has accelerated the need to create more mobile apps faster. One challenge that these apps present is that they contain working examples of how to bypass the security perimeter. In order to prevent theft of customer data, company IP, or even money, the working examples must be obfuscated from threat actors and offer some means to prevent tampering. Meanwhile, apps in an Agile organization might be released twice a month or even daily. Larger apps or apps in organizations just beginning their Agile/DevOps journey might be released quarterly or yearly. So while adding security to apps is necessary, depending on the maturity of the organization, an App Owner might 1) not think about security as a part of the DevOps process at all, 2) see security as an impediment to getting to market efficiently, or 3) want to add security but not know where to start.
Meanwhile, the primary challenge for the CISO is to protect the organization against breaches. Protecting against a breach means preventing reverse engineering and tampering with the "working examples" that live in the apps that their company creates. The second challenge the CISO faces is hiring and retaining talent. Info Sec professionals were in short supply even before the pandemic, and "the Great Resignation" has exacerbated this problem.
Challenges
- Apple has sunsetted embedded bitcode
- Businesses are under pressure to create more mobile apps faster
- Apps required for mobile are written in a variety of OSes, toolkits, and languages
- Apps contain working examples of how to bypass traditional security
- Threat actors use applications as attack vectors
The third challenge the CISO faces is maintaining customer satisfaction. If their security controls take too long to implement and thus delay the delivery of software that is in customer demand, they will face scrutiny. Further, if the security controls the CISO implements adversely affect the user experience in terms of functionality or speed, they will lose credibility. Meanwhile, if the CISO does nothing to protect the apps their company creates, the CISO faces the risk of a breach that will result in the loss of customer data, company IP, or revenue. Worse, CISOs are often the public face of security for large enterprises, and as such, their jobs are at risk when a breach is publicly disclosed. The secondary risks the CISO faces are loss of morale among employees, or worse, employee resignation – especially in the face of a public breach or an embarrassing disclosure regarding a breach.
Digital.ai Application Security for Mobile: ARM
Build Secure Software at the Speed of DevOps
Digital.ai App Security for Mobile: ARM solves the challenges App Owners and CISOs face. The most important benefit we provide is that we protect the working examples of how to bypass the perimeter security that your apps contain. We do this by obfuscating code. How do we obfuscate code? We feed unprotected code, along with the protection blueprint you create (or we create for you), into an engine that produces the protected code. The protected application contains obfuscated machine code that runs as originally designed but is virtually unreadable by threat actors – even after it has been fed into a disassembler.
You can build as many customizations and added protections into your Protection Blueprint as you like, or you can use our auto-configuration option to use a pre-built Protection Blueprint – one that requires no customization or configuration – to obfuscate your apps automatically. Using the auto-configuration option allows you to build protected apps faster.
The next most important way we protect our customer's apps is by adding anti-tampering techniques. By anti-tamper, we are primarily referring to the ability to detect two conditions. First, we detect when your app is run in an unsafe environment that might ALLOW it to be tampered with. Classic examples of these types of environments are debuggers or rooted/jailbroken devices. Second, we detect when the code in your app has been modified.
We also provide visibility into 1) attacks on your apps and 2) attempts to run your apps in unsafe environments. For example, you'll receive an alert if a threat actor attempts to modify your code. You'll also see a wealth of detail about where, on what device, and on what OS the modification took place. You'll also see the geographic location of the threat actor. You'll also see the time that the modification was detected. Finally, you'll see the name of the specific script that was modified.
When you integrate Digital.ai Mobile Application Security with our Release product, you can also gate apps to prevent unprotected apps from being accidentally released into the wild.
Taken together as part of our AI-powered DevOps platform, these protections are added to your apps without unduly slowing down either your app dev process or the apps themselves, all while preventing your apps from being used as attack vectors to steal your IP, customer data, or revenue.
App Code Disassembled in Ghidra
Key Benefits: Protect, Monitor, React
Embed Security Into App Development
- Obfuscate code to prevent reverse-engineering
- Prevent tampering by detecting unsafe environments and code changes
- Configure customized or automated protections on-premises or in the cloud
Monitor At-Risk Apps
- Produce stand-alone reports or integrate with existing Security Operations Center tools
- Create searchable logs
- See which guards and protections are activated
React To Threats with RASP
- Force step-up authentication
- Alter app features
- Shut down applications that are under attack
Key Capabilities
Protect Hybrid Frameworks
Easily protect applications developed with hybrid frameworks like Flutter, Unity, and MAUI.
Entirely Post-Build protection
Easier to configure protections and integrate them into a DevSecOps pipeline.
Add Security as Part of AI-driven
DevOps
Digital.ai provides functional and performance testing for your secure apps as well as AI-driven insights into attack trends.
Apply protections in the cloud or on-premises
Apply your own customized protections on premises or have protections added for you, automatically, in the cloud.
Easier Set Up
Streamlined configuration makes initial setup even faster than it was for previous iOS protections
About Digital.ai
Digital.ai is an industry-leading technology company dedicated to helping Global 5000 enterprises achieve digital transformation goals. The company’s AI-powered DevSecOps platform unifies, secures, and generates predictive insights across the software lifecycle. Digital.ai empowers organizations to scale software development teams, continuously deliver software with greater quality and security while uncovering new market opportunities and enhancing business value through smarter software investments.
Additional information about Digital.ai can be found at digital.ai and on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Learn more at Digital.ai Application Security
