Examining the value of SafetyNet Attestation as an Application Integrity Security Control
Google promotes the SafetyNet Attestation API as a tool to query and assess the integrity status of an Android device. The official documentation, leaves no doubt that the main purpose of the SafetyNet Attestation API is to provide device integrity information to the server counterpart of mobile applications. The server counterpart may choose to limit the functionalities available to an app, if it's running on a device with compromised integrity protections. However, in the past year CENSUS has performed a number of assessments to mobile apps where SafetyNet was also used as an application integrity security check. Furthermore, best practices documents such as ENISA's "Smartphone Secure Development Guidelines" document of December 2016, clearly propose the use of SafetyNet as a measure to check an app's integrity status (see page 23).
To the best of our knowledge, Google has not publicly released any detailed official documentation or recommended the use of the SafetyNet Attestation API for application integrity purposes.
Welcome to the jungle of mobile apps - Mobile Apps Panorama 2016
On September 23rd 2016 I did a 15' presentation on Mobile App Security at the Mobile Apps Panorama 2016 conference, which was held at the Maroussi Plaza venue in Athens, Greece. The title of the presentation was "Welcome to the Jungle (of Mobile Apps)".
Mobile Apps Panorama 2016
CENSUS will be one of the sponsors of the Mobile Apps Panorama 2016 conference, that will be held on September 23rd 2016 at the Maroussi Plaza in Athens, Greece. At the 12:25 slot our Director of Code Auditing services, Dimitris Glynos will be presenting "Welcome to the Jungle (of Mobile Apps)", a 10' intro to the threats facing today's mobile apps and the value of building apps using a Secure SDLC.
6th InfoCom Mobile World Conference
CENSUS was one of the sponsors of the 6th InfoCom Mobile World conference, that was held on April 21st, 2016 at the Divani Caravel hotel in Athens, Greece. At the 12:30 session, CENSUS researcher Ioannis Stais delivered a short presentation entitled “Side Channel Leaks in Mobile Applications”, describing different types of information leaks occurring during the use of standard APIs in today’s mobile apps.