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Think the App Store’s built-in security is enough? Think again. Welcome to Upwardly Mobile, the podcast that exposes the gaps in iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS security. Hosts Skye and George...
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Think the App Store’s built-in security is enough? Think again.
Welcome to Upwardly Mobile, the podcast that exposes the gaps in iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS security. Hosts Skye and George take you into the high-stakes world of mobile defense, revealing why standard protections from Apple, Google, and Samsung often leave your sensitive data exposed. Sponsored by Approov—the gold standard in mobile app attestation—we move beyond the basics to tackle weaponized AI threats and dynamic API attacks. From runtime attestation to navigating complex compliance regulations, we equip developers and security pros with the actionable strategies needed to thwart attackers. Don’t leave your app vulnerable.
Subscribe now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to elevate your security game.
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Welcome to Upwardly Mobile, the podcast that exposes the gaps in iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS security. Hosts Skye and George take you into the high-stakes world of mobile defense, revealing why standard protections from Apple, Google, and Samsung often leave your sensitive data exposed. Sponsored by Approov—the gold standard in mobile app attestation—we move beyond the basics to tackle weaponized AI threats and dynamic API attacks. From runtime attestation to navigating complex compliance regulations, we equip developers and security pros with the actionable strategies needed to thwart attackers. Don’t leave your app vulnerable.
Subscribe now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to elevate your security game.
Upwardly Mobile - API & App Security News
Upwardly Mobile - API & App Security News
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2 DEC 2025 · Sanchar Saathi: The Mandatory Cyber Safety App Triggering India's Surveillance Firestorm
In this critical episode of "Upwardly Mobile," we dive into the escalating controversy surrounding India's Sanchar Saathi app, a government-mandated digital tool that is fueling a nationwide debate over state surveillance and digital privacy. Designed as a citizen-centric safety tool to combat telecom fraud and track lost or stolen devices using their unique IMEI, the app has been lauded by the government for its success in blocking millions of fraudulent connections and stolen phones. However, a recent directive mandating its pre-installation on all new smartphones sold in India has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates, opposition politicians, and major tech firms. What You Will Learn in This Episode: The Core Conflict: Safety vs. Snooping
- The Mandate: The Indian telecom ministry privately ordered all smartphone manufacturers to preload Sanchar Saathi on new devices within 90 days, requiring the app to be "visible, functional, and enabled" upon first setup. This directive could eventually roll out the app to more than 735 million existing phone users via software updates.
- Government Defense: Officials state the app is strictly for cyber security and curbing the "serious endangerment" caused by IMEI tampering, promising adequate security for personal information. They also claim the app is optional and does not read private messages.
- Surveillance Fears: Privacy experts and the political opposition argue the mandate is unconstitutional and creates a massive surveillance surface area. Opposition leaders have even compared the move to 'Pegasus'.
Technical Deep Dive into Privacy Risks
- The Sanchar Saathi app requests a range of "dangerous" or "high-risk" permissions.
- The app has the capability to read call logs and all incoming SMS, technically allowing it to parse bank transaction alerts, 2FA codes, and map a user's social graph.
- It accesses device identifiers, binding a user's identity to the hardware IMEI, which breaks standard rules for resettable identifiers and aids tracking.
- If pre-installed as a system-level application (the proposed state), experts warn that permissions could be auto-granted without user consent, the app could run continuous background services, and it would be virtually impossible for 99% of users to uninstall.
- The privacy policy is weak, lacking explicit mechanisms for data deletion, correction, or a clear opt-out feature.
Industry Resistance
- Tech giants were given 90 days to comply with the pre-installation mandate.
- Apple has specifically resisted the mandate, citing concerns over privacy and system security, as iPhones require explicit user confirmation for permissions and prevent automatic background registration.
- The mandate is technically easier to implement on Android devices, which make up over 95% of the Indian smartphone market.
Keywords Sanchar Saathi, India digital privacy, state surveillance, government mandate, telecom fraud, cyber safety app, IMEI tracking, pre-installation controversy, Android security, iOS privacy, Apple resistance, call log permissions, data deletion rights, digital rights, Indian politics.
Digital Autonomy and the Sanchar Saathi App
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- Link 1: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-sci-tech/telecom-scindia-sanchar-saathi-optional-key-concerns-10397728/
- Link 2: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sanchar-saathi-communications-ministry-jyotiraditya-scindia-big-brother-or-cybersafety-boost-deep-dive-into-sanchar-saathi-app-9735477
- Link 3: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/sanchar-saathi-app-preinstalled-android-ios-privacy-security-concerns-10397922/
- Link 4: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cedxyvx74p4o
- Link 5: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/what-is-indias-politically-contentious-sanchar-saathi-cyber-safety-app-2025-12-02/
Sponsor This episode is brought to you by https://approov.io/podcast, helping developers secure their mobile APIs and prevent reverse engineering and unauthorized data access.
- Sponsor Website: approov.io 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
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27 NOV 2025 · Supply Chain Security Unpacked: Combating Dependency Confusion, Poisoned Pipelines
Episode Notes: The software supply chain, the "backbone of modern software development," is under unprecedented assault, with attacks aimed at libraries and development tools soaring by an astounding 633% year-over-year. This episode explores the evolution of supply chain threats, examining everything from software vulnerabilities and malicious maintainers to hidden risks lurking in hardware and commercial binaries, and details the cutting-edge defenses developers are deploying to fight back. The Evolving Threat Landscape: Implicit Trust Exploited Modern attacks exploit the implicit trust developers place in package managers and public repositories. Key threats discussed include:
- Dependency Confusion: First identified by Alex Birsan, this attack exploits package managers that prioritize packages found in public repositories (especially those with a higher version number) over identically named private packages. Attackers use reconnaissance to pinpoint internal package names (often by examining manifest files like package.json), publish a malicious package with the same name and a higher version to a public repository, and wait for the target application's build process to pull and execute the malicious code. Vectors for this attack include exploiting namespaces, DNS Spoofing, and manipulating CI/CD security settings.
- Widespread Malware and Stolen Secrets: The npm ecosystem was recently hit by the self-replicating "Shai-Hulud" worm, which compromised over 500 packages and harvested sensitive credentials, including GitHub Personal Access Tokens (PATs) and API keys for cloud services like AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure. Stolen credentials remain a reliable attack vector, leading to incidents where attackers published malicious code on behalf of trusted entities (e.g., Nx, rspack).
- Poisoned Pipelines and Malicious Maintainers: Highly sophisticated attackers are compromising build and distribution systems directly, bypassing code reviews. This includes notorious attacks like SolarWinds and compromises targeting GitHub Actions pipelines (e.g., Ultralytics and reviewdog/actions-setup). Furthermore, the XZ Utils backdoor highlighted the risk of malicious maintainers who build trust over years before inserting sophisticated backdoors into critical open-source projects.
- Code Rot and Vulnerable Open Source: A survey of popular open-source packages found them rife with vulnerabilities, with an average of 68 vulnerabilities across 30 packages scanned, including many critical and high-severity flaws. Even actively maintained, high-traffic packages like Torchvision contained dozens of vulnerabilities, despite frequent updates.
Defense and Verification: Making Trust Explicit To counter these escalating threats, the industry is focusing on making trust assumptions explicit and verifiable:
- Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA): SLSA is a security standard that helps consumers verify the process by which an artifact was created using a signed provenance file. Achieving Level 3 compliance involves stringent build platform hardening to prevent the forgery of provenance files.
- Trusted Publishing and Attestations: Platforms like PyPI have implemented Trusted Publishing, which removes the need for developers to manage long-lived API tokens by utilizing short-lived OIDC tokens issued by the build platform. Building on this, digital attestations (driven by PEP 740) cryptographically bind published packages to their build provenance using Sigstore.
- CI/CD Security Tools: Tools like Zizmor perform static analysis for GitHub Actions to flag subtle vulnerabilities like template injection or dangerous triggers. Capslock is an experimental tool used for Go language packages that statically identifies capabilities (like network access or file system operations), allowing developers to verify what code can actually do, regardless of where it came from.
- Preventing Confusion: Developers can mitigate Dependency Confusion through strict naming conventions, proactively reserving namespaces (or "namesquatting" on platforms like PyPI), utilizing private package repositories with stringent access controls (RBAC/MFA), and enforcing package whitelisting and version locking using files like package-lock.json.
- Verifying Commercial Binaries: Risks also lurk in closed-source commercial software ("black-box" binaries). The compromise of Justice AV Solutions (JAVS) demonstrated how malware (RustDoor) can be implanted in a backdoored installer; sophisticated tools like differential analysis are necessary to detect signs of tampering and unvetted files (such as the typosquatted ffmepg.exe). Organizations must adopt a "Don't Trust, but Verify" approach to all software received from suppliers.
- The Future of Vulnerability Management: The cybersecurity community is moving beyond sole reliance on CVEs, especially following the NVD backlog experienced in 2024. Comprehensive security now requires visibility into threats like malware, tampering, secret leaks, and lack of hardening, rather than just known vulnerabilities. NIST SP 800-204D outlines crucial strategies for integrating SSC security measures—including generating provenance data—into DevSecOps CI/CD pipelines.
Relevant Links and Resources:
- Learn more about Dependency Confusion Prevention and DevSecOps Orchestration: https://approov.com/
- NIST SP 800-204D: Strategies for the Integration of Software Supply Chain Security in DevSecOps CI/CD Pipelines: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-204D
Keywords: Software Supply Chain Security, Dependency Confusion, Hardware Trojan, SLSA Framework, CI/CD Pipeline Security, DevSecOps, Trusted Publishing, PyPI, npm, Zizmor, Build Provenance, Side-Channel Attacks, Malware, Cryptojacking, NVD Backlog, Digital Attestations, Zero Trust. 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
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24 NOV 2025 · The Multi-Terabit Battlefield: How Aisura 'Turbo Mirai' Botnet Reshaped Mobile DDoS Warfare
On November 18, 2025, a massive Cloudflare service interruption took down major platforms worldwide, including X, ChatGPT, Shopify, and various critical transit services. Given the intense, ongoing cyber conflict, initial speculation immediately pointed toward a successful, hyper-volumetric Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. Cloudflare has recently been at the forefront of blocking unprecedented assaults from notorious botnets, including Mirai and the newer, "TurboMirai-class" Aisuru botnet. The company successfully mitigated record-breaking Mirai-variant attacks measured at 5.6 Tbps (October 2024) and 7.3 Tbps (May 2025). Furthermore, the Aisuru botnet, which is responsible for hitting Microsoft Azure with a 15.72 Tbps DDoS attack, was also linked to a 22.2 Tbps attack mitigated by Cloudflare in September 2025. Aisuru operators were even caught attempting to manipulate Cloudflare’s public domain rankings using malicious query traffic. This track record provided a clear motive for a potential reprisal. However, Cloudflare’s official investigation quickly dispelled fears of a successful cyberattack. Cloudflare CTO Dane Knecht confirmed that the incident was not an attack, but rather an internal issue. The cause was identified as a "latent bug" in a service underpinning Cloudflare’s bot mitigation capability that started to crash following a routine configuration change. This technical flaw cascaded into a broad degradation across the network. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince later noted that this was the worst outage the company had experienced since 2019. This incident highlights that while automated security platforms like Cloudflare can defend against 20+ Tbps DDoS attacks, they remain vulnerable to complex internal technical flaws and configuration management errors. Keywords Cloudflare outage, DDoS, Aisuru Botnet, Mirai, Configuration error, Latent bug, Dane Knecht, November 2025, IoT security, Incident Response, Cyberattack, Network Security, Cloud Security.
Hashtags #ConfigurationManagement #IncidentResponse #CloudSecurity #IoT Related Links & Sources To read more about the incident and the cyber threat landscape, please refer to the following:
- Cloudflare Outage Not Caused by Cyberattack (SecurityWeek):
- Microsoft: Azure hit by 15 Tbps DDoS attack using 500,000 IP addresses:
- Cloudflare’s official report on the November 18, 2025 outage:
- Discussion on the configuration file bug:
- TurboMirai-Class ‘Aisuru’ Botnet Blamed for 20+ Tbps DDoS Attacks:
Sponsor Message Today’s episode is brought to you by https://approov.com. In an era where botnets like Aisuru are exploiting every vulnerability, securing your APIs and endpoints is paramount. Approov provides essential mobile app and API protection, ensuring that only trusted, legitimate clients can connect to your back-end services, providing a crucial layer of defense against sophisticated automated attacks. Learn more about protecting your mobile infrastructure at approov.com. 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
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21 NOV 2025 · Black Friday's Hidden Threat: Stopping AI-Powered Fraud and Mobile Commerce Exploits
The biggest shopping days of the year—Black Friday and Cyber Monday—have also become the prime hunting grounds for cybercriminals, with global financial losses from attacks predicted to hit $10 billion in 2024. In this episode, we dive deep into the rising statistics shaping financial cybersecurity during the holiday shopping season, focusing on how sophisticated, AI-driven scams and mobile app vulnerabilities are creating a perfect storm for retailers and consumers alike. Episode Highlights: The State of Financial Cybercrime Cybercriminal activity spikes by 70% during Black Friday compared to regular shopping days. Statistics show that cyberattacks during this period were projected to rise by 20% in 2024, following a 15% increase in 2023. Key Threats and Data:
- The Rise of Fake Shops: Scammers are evolving at an unprecedented pace, using AI to generate persuasive copy and fully functional storefront templates that mimic legitimate communication flawlessly. A recent analysis found a 250% jump in fake Black Friday shops leading up to the sales weekend.
- Targeting E-commerce: E-commerce platforms experience a 65% surge in phishing attacks. Phishing scams remain the most common threat, accounting for 42% of attacks on financial transactions during the 2023 holiday shopping period.
- Prevalent Fraud Types: Financial institutions report detecting 30% more fraudulent transactions during Cyber Monday. Card-not-present fraud was the leading method used by cybercriminals in 2023, accounting for over 75% of online fraud cases. Credential stuffing incidents surged by 80% during Cyber Monday in 2023, affecting over 40 million accounts globally.
- The Cost: Financial fraud cases during holiday shopping periods account for nearly $8.5 billion annually. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are highly vulnerable, reporting an average loss of $120,000 per cyberattack.
The Mobile Frontline: While many focus on suspicious websites, the true cybersecurity frontline for e-commerce is increasingly within mobile apps. Attacks on mobile apps used for shopping increased by 50% in 2023, often involving malicious app clones. Attackers exploit vulnerabilities like Man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks intercepting API traffic and extracting API keys reverse-engineered from app binaries. Standard defenses like TLS encryption and certificate pinning offer necessary but incomplete protection. Industry Response: Financial institutions are bolstering security by integrating biometric authentication into 50% of mobile banking apps, adopting real-time transaction monitoring (reducing fraud by 40%), and using tokenization technology in 65% of online transactions. Furthermore, Zero Trust architecture is gaining traction, with 55% of organizations adopting it to secure financial systems. Sponsor Spotlight This episode is brought to you by Approov, the mobile security platform addressing vulnerabilities where they start: the mobile API. Approov provides a pragmatic defense-in-depth approach by ensuring that only genuine, unmodified apps connect to your backend. Approov neutralizes Black Friday exploits by using dynamic attestation to verify app integrity, and protects against API key theft by delivering short-lived, attested tokens at runtime, preventing API keys from residing within the app binary. Protect your mobile commerce from sophisticated fraud. Learn more about Approov's Mobile API Protection:
- https://approov.io/podcast
Relevant Source Links For more information and detailed statistics referenced in this summary:
- Financial Cybersecurity Statistics for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 (via CoinLaw): [Link to CoinLaw Article]
- Online scams skyrocket before Black Friday – NordVPN warns what shoppers should watch out for (via TechRadar): [Link to TechRadar Article]
- https://cybermagazine.com/articles/darktrace-reports-692-surge-in-black-friday-cyber-scams
Keywords & Hashtags (SEO Optimized) Keywords: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, cybersecurity statistics, financial fraud, e-commerce security, mobile commerce, API protection, card-not-present fraud, phishing scams, ransomware, credential stuffing, AI-powered scams, fake shops, Approov, NordVPN, retail cybercrime, tokenization, Zero Trust. 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
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17 NOV 2025 · In this pivotal episode of https://approov.io/podcast, we dive into the significance of https://x.com (formerly known as Twitter) joining the https://appfairness.org/(CAF). This move signals growing momentum in the global effort to reform the mobile app ecosystem, currently dominated by Apple and Google, whose practices are alleged to harm consumers and developers alike. We examine X's commitment to dismantling monopolistic practices and fostering a digital future where competition thrives and innovation is rewarded. Furthermore, we discuss the context of this fight, including the recent U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust complaint filed against Apple. CAF asserts that Apple’s alleged illegal conduct—including abusing App Store guidelines to increase prices and choke off competition—must be addressed, urging Congress to pass legislation like the Open App Markets Act. Tune in to understand how companies are pushing back against the "shackles on developers" to create a level playing field for the more than 80 members of this independent nonprofit organization. Discussion Points
- Dismantling Monopolies: X’s Head of Global Government Affairs stated that joining CAF is a testament to their commitment to dismantling monopolistic practices and building a mobile ecosystem that truly serves its users and fosters growth.
- The Problem with Gatekeepers: The current mobile app ecosystem is dominated by Apple and Google, who use their power to harm developers and users through excessive costs and restrictions on innovation. Global Policy Counsel for CAF noted that businesses on platforms like X are harmed by these anticompetitive app store practices.
- The Antitrust Fight: The DOJ, along with 16 attorneys general, filed an antitrust complaint against Apple, accusing the company of illegally monopolizing smartphone markets. CAF supports this strong stand against Apple’s "stranglehold over the mobile app ecosystem".
- The Path Forward: CAF advocates for legislation, like the Open App Markets Act, to create a free and open mobile app marketplace and put an end to the anticompetitive practices of all mobile app gatekeepers.
- About CAF: The Coalition for App Fairness is an independent nonprofit organization focused on protecting consumer choice, fostering competition, and creating a level playing field for app and game developers globally.
https://approov.comSponsored Segment: The increasing regulatory and commercial pressures are weakening app store monopolies. As the mobile ecosystem decentralizes, the need for robust, independent security is crucial. Our sponsor, Approov, provides strong, app-centric security solutions that operate independently of basic app store protections. Approov helps mobile app developers reduce security dependencies on app stores by delivering runtime protection and attestation for mobile apps and their APIs, shielding against tampering and unauthorized access. Approov’s approach decentralizes security, ensuring developers are not limited by the basic security checks provided by Apple, Google, or any third-party app store (especially relevant as regulations like the EU DMA take effect). Key security features include:
- https://approov.io/mobile-app-security/rasp/dynamic-cert-pinning/: Secures connections against man-in-the-middle attacks and allows instant over-the-air (OTA) updates without requiring republishing through app stores.
- https://approov.io/mobile-app-security/rasp/runtime-secrets/: API keys and secrets are removed from the app and delivered only to verified app instances, protecting against reverse engineering and credential scraping attempts.
- https://approov.io/mobile-app-security/rasp/: Provides real-time shielding against threats like OS manipulation or hostile frameworks, regardless of how or where the app is distributed, including alternative app stores.
This ability to deliver critical updates and security policies directly from Approov’s cloud platform ensures the quickest possible response to threats, bypassing store-mediated app updates.
Keywords X, Twitter, Coalition for App Fairness (CAF), Mobile App Ecosystem, App Store Monopolies, Antitrust, Apple Antitrust, Google Play Store, Developer Freedom, App Competition, Open App Markets Act, Approov, App Security, API Protection, Runtime Protection, App Attestation, EU DMA.
Relevant Links
- X Joins CAF Announcement: [Link to source (though the specific URL is not provided in the excerpts, we reference the content that would link to this news)]
- CAF Mission & Membership: appfairness.org
- DOJ Antitrust Complaint Context: [Link to source (though the specific URL is not provided in the excerpts, we reference the content)]
- Sponsor Approov: Secure your mobile apps independently of app stores at approov.com
- Approov Security Details:
- How Approov Works: [Link to source]
- Approov vs. Mobile App Hardening: [Link to source]
- Approov's Role in a Post-DMA Landscape: [Link to source and] 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
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15 NOV 2025 · Standing Up to Extortion: Lessons from the Checkout.com Breach and the Rise of Vishing Attacks Description
This week on Upwardly Mobile, we dive deep into the tactics of the prolific criminal group ShinyHunters and explore how global enterprises are responding to sophisticated cyber extortion attempts in 2025. We analyze two major security incidents that highlight critical vulnerabilities in legacy systems and modern OAuth ecosystems. The Extortion Dilemma: Checkout.com Stands Firm
We detail the incident where https://www.checkout.com/blog/protecting-our-merchants-standing-up-to-extortion was contacted by ShinyHunters, who demanded a ransom after gaining unauthorized access to a legacy, third-party cloud file storage system. This system was used in 2020 and prior years for internal operational documents and merchant onboarding materials, affecting less than 25% of their current merchant base. Critically, the threat actors did not access merchant funds or card numbers, and the live payment processing platform was not impacted. Checkout.com publicly stated they would not be extorted and refused to pay the ransom. Instead, they are turning this attack into an investment for the entire security industry by donating the ransom amount to https://www.cmu.edu/ and the https://gcscc.ox.ac.uk/home-page to fund cybercrime research. The company accepted full responsibility for the legacy system not being properly decommissioned. The 2025 OAuth and Vishing Wave The episode also examines ShinyHunters' 2025 campaign targeting mobile and web-based enterprise applications, particularly those connected to Salesforce and integrated platforms like Salesloft and Drift. These attacks were characterized by sophisticated social engineering and voice phishing ("vishing"), where attackers impersonated IT staff (sometimes using AI-generated voices) to persuade employees to authorize malicious versions of Salesforce tools via mobile or web apps. By exploiting OAuth tokens, ShinyHunters compromised sensitive internal APIs and data from high-profile victims, including Google, Cloudflare, Qantas, Allianz Life, and Adidas. Analysts noted that these techniques bypassed technical controls by abusing human trust, enabling the theft of over 1.5 billion Salesforce records from approximately 760 organizations. These incidents underscore that modern mobile application security is deeply dependent on robust cloud and OAuth ecosystem safeguards. Sponsor This episode of Upwardly Mobile is brought to you by approov.io, helping protect your mobile API access and application endpoints from sophisticated attacks like those utilizing stolen OAuth tokens.
Sponsor Link: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/approov.io
Keywords: ShinyHunters, Cyber Extortion, Ransomware, Legacy System Vulnerability, OAuth Exploitation, Vishing, Voice Phishing, Salesforce Security, Checkout.com, Cybercrime Research, Cloud Security, Supply Chain Attack, Mobile Application Security, Digital Economy Security, Data Breach.
Relevant Source Materials and Links
https://www.checkout.com/blog/protecting-our-merchants-standing-up-to-extortion
ShinyHunters Salesforce Cyberattacks via Vishing and OAuth Exploitation
- The Hackernews: Why the ShinyHunters Data Breach vs. SaaS highlights vulnerabilities
- TrueSec: Cyber extortion group ShinyHunters targets Salesforce customers
- CM Alliance: Reports on major cyberattacks and data breaches in September 2025
- EclecticIQ: Analysis of ShinyHunters' financially motivated data extortion group targeting enterprise cloud applications
- ReSecurity: Examining the alliance of threat actors and their global cybercrime spree
- Obsidian Security: The merger of chaos between ShinyHunters and Scattered Spider in the 2025 Salesforce attacks
- Cysecurity News: Coverage of ShinyHunters’ voice phishing attacks
- ReliaQuest: Threat spotlight on ShinyHunters targeting Salesforce amid collaboration with Scattered Spider
- CloudProtection: Reporting on Salesforce attacks in 2025
- PKWARE: Recent Data Breaches 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
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7 NOV 2025 · Remote Attestation vs. RASP: Securing Mobile APIs at the Edge (Zscaler vs. Approov/Cloudflare) On this episode of Upwardly Mobile, we dive deep into the most critical architectural debate in mobile API security today: Does security enforcement belong on the client device (RASP) or off-device at the network edge (Remote Attestation)? We break down the philosophical and technical differences between the integrated Zscaler ZSDK approach, which bundles Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP), and the specialized, edge-native partnership between Approov and Cloudflare. Discover why security experts argue that because the attacker ultimately controls the client environment, remote attestation is superior for defense against sophisticated, targeted attacks. Episode Highlights & Key Concepts The Philosophical Divide: RASP vs. Remote Attestation The core of the debate centers on where security decision logic is insulated.
- RASP (Runtime Application Self-Protection): This approach implements security logic within the application code to detect threats locally during runtime, often used for real-time overlay fraud, app tampering, and emulator abuse detection.
- The Risk: Any locally enforced logic provides a target for advanced adversaries. Attackers can potentially reverse-engineer RASP checks and bypass local controls to execute API requests from a tampered application instance.
- Remote Attestation (Approov/Cloudflare): This specialized approach verifies that only a genuine, untampered app can access APIs, protecting backend systems from unauthorized or rogue applications.
- Superior Resilience: Approov’s architecture minimizes local enforcement, ensuring attestation decisions are made entirely in the cloud service. This insulates the enforcement logic on the backend, offering superior resilience against sophisticated, targeted attacks.
- Zero Feedback Loop: A key security advantage is that the attacker receives no feedback from the client on why the token validation failed at the edge, significantly raising the cost and complexity of a successful attack bypass.
Architectural and Operational Advantages The comparison between the integrated Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (ZTNA/SSE) model and the Approov/Cloudflare Edge-First (WAAP) model highlights major differences in deployment, performance, and operational cost.
- Enforcement Location and TCO: The Approov/Cloudflare model focuses enforcement entirely at the Cloudflare edge using serverless functions (Workers or API Shield). This is described as a zero-operations deployment model that removes the need for customer-managed infrastructure components like Zscaler’s required App Connectors. The serverless model accelerates time-to-value and minimizes maintenance overhead.
- API Key Protection: Approov provides a critical security layer by leveraging attestation guarantees to securely deliver secrets, such as API keys, just-in-time to the application only when the environment is verified as genuine and unmodified. This capability directly mitigates the risks associated with reverse engineering hard-coded keys.
- Performance and Scale: The Cloudflare/Approov integration leverages Cloudflare’s global, high-performance network. Comparative tests show Cloudflare is significantly faster than Zscaler in various Zero Trust scenarios, a crucial factor for a smooth user experience and ensuring users don't bypass security controls. Furthermore, Approov offers a commercial attestation fabric built for scale, guaranteeing no quotas or throttling on attestation traffic for high-volume apps.
- API Governance: Cloudflare API Shield enhances protection with rigorous positive security via OpenAPI schema validation at the edge. This preemptively guards against modern API security risks like Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA) by ensuring that only traffic conforming to the documented API structure is accepted.
Secure Your Mobile APIs with the Industry's Leading Attestation Solution This episode is proudly brought to you by Approov, the definitive solution for continuous and deterministic mobile app attestation. Approov ensures that only genuine, untampered instances of your mobile application can access your backend APIs, protecting against bot attacks, API abuse, and sophisticated tampering. Learn how to deploy mobile API security today: 🔗 https://approov.io/
Keywords: Mobile API Security, Remote Attestation, RASP, Approov, Cloudflare, Zscaler, API Integrity, Mobile App Protection, Zero Trust Architecture, Edge Security, API Abuse Prevention, Serverless Security, JWT Attestation, Mobile Bot Mitigation, Cloudflare Workers, App Attestation. 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
Transcribed
3 NOV 2025 · Upwardly Mobile: Episode Notes Episode Title: App Store Revolution: Google Play Opens to Third-Party Payments (The Epic Games Aftermath) Summary: In this episode of Upwardly Mobile, we break down the monumental shift in the Android ecosystem following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Google's final appeal. Google has finally opened its Google Play app store to third-party payment options for U.S. developers, settling a multi-year legal battle initiated by Epic Games. We discuss what this means for developers seeking to maximize revenue, the new freedom to direct users to cheaper external payment options, and the resulting challenges in maintaining app integrity and security now that developers are operating outside Google Play Billing exclusivity. Plus, we explore crucial security solutions, like Approov, that can help developers protect their apps when relying less on Google Mobile Services (GMS) for integrity checks. Key Takeaways
- Policy Shift: Following years of legal challenges, Google is now required to allow U.S. app developers to use alternative payment methods and link users directly to external payment sources. This means developers can process payments outside of Google’s ecosystem and inform users about alternative pricing.
- End of Exclusivity: Previously, Google generally mandated the use of Google Play Billing and collected a commission on nearly every in-app purchase. Now, developers can provide direct links to external checkout pages and offer options like PayPal or their own payment systems.
- Timeline and Scope: This change became effective immediately as of October 29, 2025. However, the new rules currently apply only in the U.S. and the District Court order is set to expire on November 1, 2027.
- Security Challenges: While developers gain freedom and potential revenue maximization by avoiding Play Store commissions, distributing and processing payments externally requires implementing their own robust security, update, and analytics systems, as Play services like integrity verification may not be available.
- App Attestation Alternative: For developers building non-GMS Android apps or those seeking customizable security outside of Google’s structure, Approov provides a solution. Approov is a runtime application self-protection (RASP) tool that offers app attestation—verifying the integrity and authenticity of an app and the device it runs on—without relying on Google PlayIntegrity or SafetyNet.
Sponsored by Approov Protect your app and APIs regardless of your payment processing choices. Approov offers comprehensive runtime application self-protection (RASP) and serves as a reliable, GMS-independent alternative to Google PlayIntegrity for robust app attestation and real-time threat detection. Learn more or start a free trial today: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/approov.io Relevant Links & Resources
- Google Opens App Store to Third-Party Payment Systems (PaymentsJournal): https://www.paymentsjournal.com/google-opens-app-store-to-third-party-payment-systems/
- Google Play now allows Android apps to use other billing systems in the US (9to5Google): https://9to5google.com/2025/10/30/google-play-now-allows-android-apps-to-use-other-billing-systems-in-the-us/
- How Organizations Can Chart the Course to Agentic Commerce (Must Read): [Relevant link to PaymentsJournal content on commerce] (October 31, 2025)
Keywords Google Play, third-party payments, Epic Games, app store, commission, app security, app attestation, Approov, U.S. court ruling, Google Play Billing, non-GMS apps, developer revenue, digital payments, emerging payments, API security. 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
Transcribed
31 OCT 2025 · The Billion-Download Backdoor: Defending Client-Side Supply Chains Against Crypto-Draining NPM Attacks
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Episode Notes
In early September 2025, the open-source software ecosystem faced a massive supply chain attack when attackers compromised trusted maintainer accounts on npm using targeted phishing emails. This security breach led to the injection of malicious code into 18 widely used npm packages—such as chalk, debug, and ansi-styles—which together account for more than 2 billion downloads per week.
This episode dives into the mechanics of the attack, the threat posed by the complex malware deployed, and the role of advanced AI-powered defenses in preventing client-side disaster.
Key Takeaways
The Threat Landscape The attackers' primary goal was crypto-stealing or wallet draining. The compromised packages contained obfuscated JavaScript, which, when included in end-user applications (including web projects and mobile apps built with frameworks like React Native or Ionic), was activated at the browser level. This malware would intercept network traffic and API requests, ultimately swapping legitimate cryptocurrency addresses (including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana) with the attackers' wallets. The attack leveraged the human factor, as maintainers were tricked by phishing emails urging them to update two-factor authentication credentials via a fake domain, npmjs[.]help.
The Evolution of Malware: Shai-Hulud Beyond crypto-hijacking, researchers detected a complex self-replicating worm dubbed Shai-Hulud. This advanced payload targets development and CI/CD environments:
• Autonomous Propagation: Shai-Hulud uses existing trust relationships to automatically infect additional NPM packages and projects.
• Credential Theft: Using stolen GitHub access tokens, the worm lists and clones private repositories to attacker-controlled accounts.
• Secret Harvesting: It downloads and utilizes the secret-scanning tool TruffleHog to harvest secrets, keys, and high-entropy strings from the compromised environment.
• Malicious Workflows: Shai-Hulud establishes persistence by injecting malicious GitHub Actions workflows into repositories, enabling automated secret exfiltration.
Automated Defense with AI Security Cloudflare’s client-side security offering, Page Shield, proved critical in mitigating this threat. Page Shield assesses 3.5 billion scripts per day (40,000 scripts per second) using machine learning (ML) based malicious script detection.
• Page Shield utilizes a message-passing graph convolutional network (MPGCN). This graph-based model learns hacker patterns purely from the structure (e.g., function calling) and syntax of the code, making it resilient against advanced techniques like code obfuscation used in the npm compromise.
• Cloudflare verified that Page Shield would have successfully detected all 18 compromised npm packages as malicious, despite the attack being novel and not present in the initial training data.
• While patches were released quickly (in 2 hours or less), Page Shield was already equipped to detect and block this threat, helping users "dodge the proverbial bullet".
Security Recommendations
To protect against fast-moving supply chain attacks, organizations must maintain vigilance and implement automated defenses:
1. Audit Dependencies: Review your dependency tree, checking for versions published around early–mid September 2025. Developers should pin dependencies to known-good versions.
2. Rotate Credentials: Immediately revoke and reissue any exposed CI/CD tokens, cloud credentials, or service keys that might have been used in the build pipeline.
3. Enforce MFA: Tighten access policies and enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all developer and CI/CD access points.
4. Proactive Monitoring: Monitor build logs and environments for signs of suspicious scanning activity, such as the use of TruffleHog.
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🔗 Relevant Links and Resources
• Cloudflare: https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-cloudflares-client-side-security-made-the-npm-supply-chain-attack-a-non/
◦ Cloudflare Page Shield Script detection
• Trend Micro Research: What We Know About the NPM Supply Chain Attack
• Kaspersky Blog: Popular npm packages compromised
🛡️ Sponsor
This episode of Upwardly Mobile is brought to you by our friends at https://approov.io/mobile-app-security/rasp/.
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Keywords:
NPM supply chain attack, Cloudflare Page Shield, Shai-Hulud worm, Cryptohijacker, crypto-stealing malware, client-side security, JavaScript obfuscation, open-source security, dependency audit, CI/CD security, phishing attack, MPGCN, machine learning security, developer accounts compromise, npm packages, software security.
🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
Transcribed
27 OCT 2025 · The Unseen Storm: Securing APIs and Protecting Against Key Exposure
This week on Upwardly Mobile, we delve into the hidden dangers lurking within seemingly simple applications and the advanced solutions required to close the modern mobile security trust gap. We analyze a case study involving a basic weather application to illustrate how common development mistakes—like exposing sensitive API keys and neglecting input validation—create catastrophic security vulnerabilities, potentially leading to data breaches, financial loss, and system compromise. The Problem: Client-Side Secrets and Architectural Flaws The proliferation of web applications consuming public APIs has vastly expanded the attack surface. Developers often treat the client environment as trusted, leading to critical architectural failures. We discuss how exposed API keys embedded in client-side JavaScript are considered "low-hanging fruit" for attackers.
Key Takeaways from the Security Analysis:
- Reconnaissance and Exploitation: Attackers can use tools like curl and grep with regular expressions to scan target URLs for hardcoded API key patterns. Once obtained, keys can be used for unauthorized calls, potentially exceeding quotas and incurring costs.
- Interception: Tools like Burp Suite enable attackers to intercept and modify API traffic, revealing the exact structure of API calls, including the API key and parameters.
- Injection Attacks: Poor input sanitization on server-side search functionalities is a primary attack vector. We examine verified command snippets used to test for command injection (e.g., appending cat /etc/passwd) and NoSQL Injection (e.g., using MongoDB operator syntax).
- Lateral Movement: An exposed API key is often just the beginning. If the key has excessive permissions, it can allow an attacker to enumerate IAM policies, check for sensitive S3 buckets, and even create persistent administrative users, leading to a full cloud account takeover.
Defensive Fundamentals for Developers: To combat these threats, security must be shifted left—integrated into the earliest stages of development. We review critical defensive measures:
- Environment Variable Security: API keys must never be exposed to the client; they should reside in secure server-side environment variables. The client should request data from your secure server endpoint, which then internally fetches the data from the third-party API using the hidden key.
- Rate Limiting: To protect backend APIs from abuse and "Denial-of-Wage" attacks (attacks that incur cost), rate limiting middleware (like express-rate-limit) is essential. This blocks automated scripts by limiting each IP to a set number of requests within a time window.
- Cloud Hardening: Security extends to infrastructure. Developers must audit cloud resources, checking S3 bucket policies for leaks and ensuring EC2 security groups only allow necessary web traffic (ports 80 and 443).
Closing the Mobile API Security Trust Gap with Positive Authentication While these fundamentals are crucial, mobile app security introduces unique challenges, creating a concerning "trust gap". Traditional security measures like TLS, mutual TLS, embedded API keys, and signature-based approaches are often insufficient, as they are vulnerable to reverse engineering, MitM attacks, and spoofing. We discuss Approov, a solution designed for the mobile world that uses a positive trust model to authenticate the app instance itself, rather than just the user or the connection.
- App Attestation: https://approov.io/ uses a challenge-response cryptographic protocol to dynamically measure the integrity of the runtime app image.
- Tokens (JWT): Only genuine, untampered apps are granted a short-lived JSON Web Token (JWT). Requests without a valid token are immediately rejected by the backend API.
- Protection against Reverse Engineering: Because the system does not rely on static secrets embedded in the app, traditional reverse engineering techniques are ineffective. Approov also provides a runtime secrets protection capability, allowing developers to remove third-party API keys from the app package entirely, substituting them only just in time for the API call after the app has passed attestation.
- Benefits: This positive authentication model blocks sophisticated bots, automated scraping systems, and repackaged apps, ensuring that only registered, authentic versions of your application can access your valuable digital assets.
Links & Resources Source Material Reference:
- Excerpts from "https://undercodetesting.com/the-unseen-storm-how-a-simple-weather-app-exposes-critical-api-security-flaws/"
- Excerpts from "https://approov.io/addressing-the-security-trust-gap-in-a-mobile-world"
Sponsor:
- Learn how Approov protects your revenue and business data by deploying Mobile Security: https://www.approov.io/
Keywords API security, mobile security, API key protection, reverse engineering, input validation, client-side vulnerabilities, app attestation, JWT, zero-trust architectures, rate limiting, cloud security, Denial-of-Wage, Man-in-the-Middle (MitM), Burp Suite, Approov. 🎙️ Upwardly Mobile is hosted by Skye Macintyre & George McGregor. 🛡️ Sponsored by Approov: The only comprehensive solution for mobile app and API security. 👉 Subscribe & Review: https://approov.io/podcast
Think the App Store’s built-in security is enough? Think again. Welcome to Upwardly Mobile, the podcast that exposes the gaps in iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS security. Hosts Skye and George...
show more
Think the App Store’s built-in security is enough? Think again.
Welcome to Upwardly Mobile, the podcast that exposes the gaps in iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS security. Hosts Skye and George take you into the high-stakes world of mobile defense, revealing why standard protections from Apple, Google, and Samsung often leave your sensitive data exposed. Sponsored by Approov—the gold standard in mobile app attestation—we move beyond the basics to tackle weaponized AI threats and dynamic API attacks. From runtime attestation to navigating complex compliance regulations, we equip developers and security pros with the actionable strategies needed to thwart attackers. Don’t leave your app vulnerable.
Subscribe now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to elevate your security game.
show less
Welcome to Upwardly Mobile, the podcast that exposes the gaps in iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS security. Hosts Skye and George take you into the high-stakes world of mobile defense, revealing why standard protections from Apple, Google, and Samsung often leave your sensitive data exposed. Sponsored by Approov—the gold standard in mobile app attestation—we move beyond the basics to tackle weaponized AI threats and dynamic API attacks. From runtime attestation to navigating complex compliance regulations, we equip developers and security pros with the actionable strategies needed to thwart attackers. Don’t leave your app vulnerable.
Subscribe now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to elevate your security game.
Information
| Author | Approov Mobile Security |
| Organization | William Corbin |
| Categories | Technology , Tech News , Investing |
| Website | - |
| corboo@mac.com |
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