Everything you need to understand about preventing application repackaging!
The traditional antivirus solutions no doubt, were very much valuable but normally they were very short in detecting the threats. The reliance associated with the signature-based detection was leaving the users very much vulnerable to the zero-day attacks especially the concept of repackaging. The focus on the entire concept of preventing the application repackaging becomes very critical because in this case, everybody will be able to focus on the target getting the root cause of the problem.
What do you mean by application repackaging?
Application repackaging is the process in which the existing Android application will be reverse-engineered by cybercriminals to have easy access to the source code. The application in this particular case will be later modified to include malicious and unauthorized coding which further will be re-distributing without the permission of the developer. Due to this particular perspective, it will be very perfectly used for harmful purposes and the altered version in this case will lead to compromise over the user data, privacy, and security which makes it a significant threat to the users and developers.
How does application repackaging facilitate IP theft?
Intellectual property theft includes the concept of stealing and using somebody else’s creations, inventions, and proprietary information without any permission. This will include the accessibility to patents which are based upon protecting the inventions, copyright which covers creative works like software, trademarks which help in identifying brands and logos, and trade secrets which are based upon confidential business information.
Re-packaging attacks are a direct form of IP theft for many reasons and some of those related to app protection are:
- Unauthorized use of the coding: Attackers in this particular case will be proceeding with the deco and modification of the original application which further leads to the clear violation of the copyright of the developer. The unauthorized use of coding in this particular case will be based upon the theft of the intellectual property of the developer.
- Revenue diversion: By removing the ads and bypassing the in-application purchases, attackers in this case will be directing and diverting the revenue that will rightfully belong to the original developers. This will not only constitute financial theft but also lead to issues based on the business model of the developer.
- The exploitation of the brand: Any option that has been prepackaged will retain the look and feel of the original which further will mislead the users into thinking that they are dealing with all legitimate products. Exploitation of the brand is the biggest possible form of infringement in this particular case.
- Distribution of the modified applications: Attacks in this case can easily go for branding of the application again and distributing it as their own which effectively will be stealing the market share and user base in the whole process. This will be particularly damaging for the less popular applications and further people need to have a good understanding of the branding and advertising in this case so that generating the revenue becomes very easy.
Why should you focus on preventing the application from repackaging into the Android applications?
- Protecting against the distribution of malware: Repackaging is a very common technique used by malware creators to inject malicious coding elements into legitimate applications. By preventing the repackaging, the developers will significantly reduce the risk of the applications that have been used as vehicles for malware distribution.
- Preserving the authenticity and integrity of the application: Repackaging will be always at the forefront in ordering the origin application coding, compromising the authenticity and potentially introducing the vulnerabilities based upon unwanted functionality.
- Maintaining the revenue stream: Any kind of application that has been repackaged will bypass the application purchases, remove and redirect the revenue, and distribute the paid applications for free. This will lead to significant financial losses for the legitimate developers.
- Protecting the user data and privacy: Any application that has gone through the concept of re-packaging will include the coding element to steal the user credentials, financial information, and other sensitive data
- Ensuring compliance with the store policies: Many application stores like Google Play Store will have multiple policies against the concept of repackaged applications and preventing the concept will help provide people with an element of compliance.
- Successfully helpful in introducing piracy: Repackaging is a very common method for application piracy that allows the attacks to distribute the paid applications for free and further will be based upon modification of the free applications to generate revenue for themselves.
Some of the common ways of preventing the application repackaging have been very well explained as follows:
- Introducing the coding obfuscation: This is efficiently based upon making the application coding element very difficult to read and understand even when the attacker decompresses the APK. Using tools like ProGuard in this particular case is visible so that things are very well sorted out and it becomes harder for us to identify and identify the critical application components.
- Proceeding with the integrity checking: Implementing the runtime integrity checking is important so that the application coding element has never been tampered with and further the signature verification will be proficiently introduced in the whole process.
- Proceeding with the native coding integration: Moving the critical security checks and sensitive coding element is important so that it becomes very challenging to reverse engineering and further the bite code of the Java will be very well sorted out with the help of the best possible interface.
- Understanding the encryption: This will be based upon encrypting the sensitive components of the application including the resources and the critical coding sections. Decrypting all of these components whenever necessary during runtime is important because this will provide people with an additional layer of security which makes it very hard for the attackers to access and modify the content of the application.
In addition to the points mentioned above, focusing on secured communication and watermarking with monitoring and regular analytics is important so that app code protection will be very well-paid attention to and organizations will be highly confident in launching the perfect applications. This will be helpful in preventing repackaging very easily and implementation of the successful measures with the help of experts at Appsealing will help implement things in the right direction so that there is no scope for any kind of exploitation at any step.
