[infosecinstitute] iOS Application Security Part 34 – Tracing Method calls using Logify

In the previous articles, we have seen how applications like Snoop-it can trace method calls specific to the application at runtime. This is very important in deducing the flow of the application. The same process can be performed by using a perl script named Logify.pl that comes installed with Theos. The script takes input as a header file and generates the hooking code that we can add in our tweak. We can also specify the classes we want to check. Once the tweak is installed on the device, whenever a method for that particular class is called, the tweak logs out the method along with the arguments to syslog. The first step here is to get the header files for a particular application. You can get the header files by using the -H option in class-dump-z. Once the headers folder is generated, you can copy it to your system.

[infosecinstitute] iOS Application Security Part 33 – Writing tweaks using Theos (Cydia Substrate)

In some of the previous articles in this series, we have looked at how we can modify the behaviour of an application by patching it using IDA Pro, Hopper etc. However, doing this hasn’t been quite straightforward always. We can also use Cycript to modify the behaviour of an application by changing some of the method implementations, but the change isn’t permanent. This is where writing tweaks for an application comes in handy. A tweak is nothing but a run-time patch to an application using the Cydia Substrate framework. Cydia Substrate consists of 3 major components: MobileHooker, MobileLoader and safe mode. You can read about these 3 major components here. Saurik has also written a complete series of documentation here. Our main focus here would be not to go in depth and learn how to write tweaks for jailbroken devices but to understand there relevance to application security so we can quickly write our own tweaks when necessary.

[infosecinstitute] Getting started with Damn Vulnerable iOS Application

In this article, I will write about how to get started with Damn Vulnerable iOS Application. Damn Vulnerable iOS App (DVIA) is an iOS application that I wrote to provide a platform to mobile security enthusiasts/professionals or students to test their iOS penetration testing skills in a legal environment. This application covers all the common vulnerabilities found in iOS applications (following OWASP top 10 mobile risks) and contains several challenges that the user can try. Every challenge is coupled with an article that the users can read to learn more on that topic. This application can also be used by absolute beginners in iOS application security as the tutorials that come with DVIA are written keeping beginners in mind. The users can also buy a comprehensive guide of solutions for DVIA if they want. DVIA is also open source and its Github page can be found here.

[infosecurity-magazine] New Snapchat Flaw Can DoS and Spam iOS and Android

10 February 2014

A security researcher has discovered a new flaw in Snapchat that allows users to deliver a denial of service attack against individual iOS or Android users, or alternatively more easily deliver spam to a large number of users. It is the latest in a series of problems experienced by Snapchat over the last few months.