How to protect your apps, users and customers from being exploited by dynamic instrumentation tools like Frida
What is Frida?
Frida is an open-source dynamic instrumentation framework primarily used for dynamically analyzing and manipulating the behavior of mobile apps. It is designed to allow developers and security researchers to inject JavaScript code into running applications, enabling them to monitor and modify various aspects of the app's execution, such as function calls, network traffic, and data manipulation. Frida works on multiple platforms, including Android and iOS, making it a versatile tool for mobile app analysis and reverse engineering.
How is Frida used?
While Frida is a useful tool for developers and researchers to debug and modify apps, it also enables malicious actors to exploit applications. Attackers can use Frida to intercept and modify sensitive data like API keys and passwords as they are used in memory. They can bypass authentication or authorization checks by injecting code and overriding logic in your app for a variety of malicious behavior. Essentially it provides a way to manipulate the behavior of any app without having access to the application source code.
How Attackers use Frida:
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Code Injection: Attackers can use Frida to inject their own code into a running process. This can allow them to modify the behavior of the application, bypass security checks, or steal sensitive information. By injecting malicious code, attackers can intercept and manipulate function calls, alter data, or even hook into encryption routines.
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SSL Pinning Bypass: Many mobile applications implement Static SSL/TLS pinning to ensure secure communication with servers. Attackers can use Frida to bypass SSL pinning by intercepting the SSL/TLS traffic and replacing the legitimate SSL certificates with their own. Learn more.
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Function Hooking: Frida provides powerful hooking capabilities, allowing attackers to intercept and modify the behavior of specific functions within an application. By hooking critical functions, attackers can tamper with the application's logic, bypass security measures, or extract sensitive data.
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Old Solutions to Modern Problems: There's copious amounts of older & outdated mobile app security products on the market today that rely fully on defending against attacks by incorporating security measures on the app and device itself, Tools like Frida can easily allow malicious actors to disable these security features as you've essentially handed it over and into their hands. See how our patented solution gives you the competitive edge. Learn more
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Abusing APIs: Without actually authenticating the application and device, an injected script can call privileged APIs, allowing data to be scraped or in some cases allowing access to sensitive user data.
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Pirating paid apps: Bypass licensing checks or inject cheats to access premium functionality without purchase.
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Gaming & Online Gambling: Cheaters can use Frida to inject javascript into a running mobile application to gain a competitive edge through client-side hacks, this can not only cause financial loss but also lead to frustration and reputational loss from legitimate players.
For the risk of injection cheats faced by games, JikGuard has customized a special response strategy, and the solution has been connected to a number of popular games and verified the excellent protection ability.
Active Recognition of Malicious Modules
Unlike other security products in the market, which need to obtain samples to combat cheats, JikGuard's exclusive “active identification of malicious module mechanism” actively identifies suspicious modules, and together with the online combat features, achieves proactive defense, which significantly shortens the cycle of cheats investigation.
Anti-Injector Features
JikGuard prohibits the use of Xposed, Frida, and other cheats module injectors, preventing the injection from modifying the game memory and other malicious behaviors, and immediately flashing back once it is found.
Anti-Debugging Features
Prevent cheats authors from debugging the game, prevent static or dynamic analysis of the game, and immediately flashback once found.
Security environment detection features
Unlike other products on the market, JikGuard Hardening adopts a more underlying detection method, which can accurately identify all kinds of risky environments such as virtual frameworks, virtual machines, jailbreaks, ROOT, cloud phones, etc., and provide personalized flashing strategies.
- How Games Detect Frida