How to Prevent Session Replay Attacks in Android & iOS Apps

Last updated March 5, 2024 by Appdome

Learn to Prevent Session Replay Attack in Mobile apps, in mobile CI/CD with a Data-Driven DevSecOps™ build system.

What is a Session Replay Attack?

Mobile apps often store authentication information, credentials, tokens, or other artifacts to maintain a state and improve the user experience. It’s important to take measures to protect this valuable information because stale sessions can also be reused and reclaimed by hackers and used in their attacks. And many times such replay (reuse) of sessions may go unnoticed for months or longer.

How Does Appdome Prevent Session Replay Attack in Mobile Apps?

Appdome detects and prohibits session replay attacks by reclaiming SessionIDs for stale TLS sessions so that hackers cannot reuse them in their attacks.

Prerequisites for Using Session Replay Attack:

To use Appdome’s mobile app security build system to Prevent Session Replay Attack , you’ll need:

Prevent Session Replay Attack on Mobile apps using Appdome

On Appdome, follow these simple steps to create self-defending Mobile Apps that Prevent Session Replay Attack without an SDK or gateway:

  1. Upload the Mobile App to Appdome.

    1. Upload an app to Appdome’s Mobile App Security Build System

    2. Upload Method: Appdome Console or DEV-API
    3. Mobile App Formats: .ipa for iOS, or .apk or .aab for Android
    4. Session Replay Attack Compatible With: Obj-C, C+, Java, JS, C#, C++, Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, Unity, Xamarin, and more
  2. Build the feature: Session Replay Attack.

    1. Building Session Replay Attack by using Appdome’s DEV-API:

      1. Create and name the Fusion Set (security template) that will contain the Session Replay Attack feature as shown below:
      2. fusion set that contains Session Replay Attack

        Figure 1: Fusion Set that will contain the Session Replay Attack feature
        Note: Naming the Fusion Set to correspond to the protection(s) selected is for illustration purposes only (not required).

      3. Follow the steps in Sections 2.2.1-2.2.2 of this article, Building the Session Replay Attack feature via Appdome Console, to add the Session Replay Attack feature to this Fusion Set.

      4. Open the Fusion Set Detail Summary by clicking the “...” symbol on the far-right corner of the Fusion Set, as shown in Figure 1 above, and get the Fusion Set ID from the Fusion Set Detail Summary (as shown below): fusion Set Detail Summary image

        Figure 2: Fusion Set Detail Summary
        Note: Annotating the Fusion Set to identify the protection(s) selected is optional only (not mandatory).

      5. Follow the instructions below to use the Fusion Set ID inside any standard mobile DevOps or CI/CD toolkit like Bitrise, App Center, Jenkins, Travis, Team City, Cirlce CI or other system:
        1. Build an API for the app – for instructions, see the tasks under Appdome API Reference Guide
        2. Look for sample APIs in Appdome’s GitHub Repository
    2. Building the Session Replay Attack feature via Appdome Console

      To build the Session Replay Attack protection by using Appdome Console, follow the instructions below.

      1. Where: Inside the Appdome Console, go to Build > Security Tab > Secure Communication section.
      2. When you enable Prevent Session Replay Attack you'll notice that your Fusion Set you created in step 2.1.1 now bears the icon of the protection category that contains Session Replay Attack

        Fusion Set applied Session Replay Attack

        Figure 4: Fusion Set that displays the newly added Session Replay Attack protection

      3. Click Build My App at the bottom of the Build Workflow (shown in Figure 3).
    Congratulations!  The Session Replay Attack protection is now added to the mobile app

Using Appdome, there are no development or coding prerequisites to build secured Mobile Apps by using Session Replay Attack. There is no SDK and no library to code or implement in the app and no gateway to deploy in your network. All protections are built into each app and the resulting app is self-defending and self-protecting.

Releasing and Publishing Mobile Apps with Session Replay Attack

After successfully securing your app by using Appdome, there are several available options to complete your project, depending on your app lifecycle or workflow. These include:

Related Articles:

If you have any questions, please send them our way at support.appdome.com or via the chat window on the Appdome platform.

Thank you!

Thanks for visiting Appdome! Our mission is to secure every app on the planet by making mobile app security easy. We hope we’re living up to the mission with your project.

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