iOS
Last updated
Last updated
https://book.hacktricks.xyz/mobile-pentesting/ios-pentesting-checklist
Read iOS Basics
Prepare your environment reading iOS Testing Environment
Read all the sections of iOS Initial Analysis to learn common actions to pentest an iOS application
Plist files can be used to store sensitive information.
Core Data (SQLite database) can store sensitive information.
YapDatabases (SQLite database) can store sensitive information.
Firebase miss-configuration.
Realm databases can store sensitive information.
Couchbase Lite databases can store sensitive information.
Binary cookies can store sensitive information
Cache data can store sensitive information
Automatic snapshots can save visual sensitive information
Keychain is usually used to store sensitive information that can be left when reselling the phone.
In summary, just check for sensitive information saved by the application in the filesystem
Does the application allow to use custom keyboards?
Check if sensitive information is saved in the keyboards cache files
Backups can be used to access the sensitive information saved in the file system (check the initial point of this checklist)
Also, backups can be used to modify some configurations of the application, then restore the backup on the phone, and the as the modified configuration is loaded some (security) functionality may be bypassed
Check for sensitive information inside the application's memory
Check if yo can find passwords used for cryptography
Check for the use of deprecated/weak algorithms to send/store sensitive data
If a local authentication is used in the application, you should check how the authentication is working.
If it's using the Local Authentication Framework it could be easily bypassed
If it's using a function that can dynamically bypassed you could create a custom frida script
Custom URI Handlers / Deeplinks / Custom Schemes
Check if the application is registering any protocol/scheme
Check if the application is registering to use any protocol/scheme
Check if the application expects to receive any kind of sensitive information from the custom scheme that can be intercepted by the another application registering the same scheme
Check if the application isn't checking and sanitizing users input via the custom scheme and some vulnerability can be exploited
Check if the application exposes any sensitive action that can be called from anywhere via the custom scheme
Check if the application is registering any universal protocol/scheme
Check the apple-app-site-association file
Check if the application isn't checking and sanitizing users input via the custom scheme and some vulnerability can be exploited
Check if the application exposes any sensitive action that can be called from anywhere via the custom scheme
Check if the application can receive UIActivities and if it's possible to exploit any vulnerability with specially crafted activity
Check if the application if copying anything to the general pasteboard
Check if the application if using the data from the general pasteboard for anything
Monitor the pasteboard to see if any sensitive data is copied
Is the application using any extension?
Check which kind of webviews are being used
Check the status of javaScriptEnabled, JavaScriptCanOpenWindowsAutomatically, hasOnlySecureContent
Check if the webview can access local files with the protocol file:// (allowFileAccessFromFileURLs, allowUniversalAccessFromFileURLs)
Check if Javascript can access Native methods (JSContext, postMessage)
Perform a MitM to the communication and search for web vulnerabilities.
Check if the hostname of the certificate is checked
Check/Bypass Certificate Pinning
Check for automatic patching/updating mechanisms
Check for malicious third party libraries
