Security Glossary

Hardening refers to the process of strengthening a system or application by reducing its attack surface and tightening its configuration. It includes actions like applying security patches, disabling unnecessary services, removing unused accounts, and configuring strict permissions. The objective is to make exploitation significantly more difficult for attackers. Hardening does not eliminate all risks but increases the effort required to compromise an application. A well-hardened mobile app improves resilience against tampering, unauthorised access attempts and reverse engineering.

Hooking detection is a technique used mainly in mobile app security to detect hooking frameworks and runtime manipulation attempts. Hooking tools are used to alter application behaviour, monitor activity or inject malicious logic. Hooking detection occurs by analysing abnormal runtime behaviour, suspicious library loading, or unauthorised modifications to function calls, or suspicious libraries. By detecting such activities, applications can restrict access or terminate operations. This protection helps maintain application integrity and prevents unauthorised manipulation of sensitive processes. Simple Hooking detection can fail as attackers sometimes use obfuscated and modified tools that prevent hooking detection.

Hooking detection engine is commonly a part of a Runtime Application Self Protection(RASP) or app shielding tool. It analyses runtime behaviour and identifies when a software app, particularly on mobile devices (Android/iOS), is tampered with or modified by hooking frameworks like Frida, Xposed, or Magisk. With runtime behaviour detection, it monitors system calls and loaded libraries. Hooking can allow attackers to manipulate the app, bypass security controls or extract sensitive data. Detecting it is an important step to maintain application integrity. Commercial apps should apply runtime security in their apps to protect them from hooking attacks.

HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is a secure version of HTTP that uses TLS (Transport Layer Security) to encrypt data transmitted between a user’s device and a server. TLS prevents eavesdropping or tampering. Every HTTPS session involves TLS negotiation and uses X. 509 digital certificates to authenticate servers. For example, when you see a padlock icon in a browser’s address bar, your connection is secured by TLS. Modern best practice suggests to use TLS 1.2 or 1.3 with strong ciphers. In mobile applications, HTTPS protects login credentials, payment information, API requests, and session tokens from interception. Proper TLS configuration is essential as weak implementations can expose applications to Man-in-the-Middle attacks.