SSL/TLS certificate pinning is a technique that prevents man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks by hardcoding the expected server certificate or public key directly in the app. When a VAPT assessment identifies "Missing SSL Pinning" or "SSL Pinning Bypass Possible" as a finding, customers frequently ask whether AppSecurity addresses this.
This guide clarifies exactly what AppSecurity does and does not do with respect to SSL pinning, and how the two layers of protection work together.
What AppSecurity Does Not Do
AppSecurity does not implement SSL/TLS certificate pinning.
Certificate pinning must be implemented by your development team in the app's network layer. This is true regardless of which mobile security solution you use — pinning is an application-level concern that requires your app to explicitly validate the server's certificate against a known value.
From confirmed support cases, this has been a source of confusion. The correct understanding, as stated by the AppSecurity support team:
"What AppSecurity is doing for SSL pinning is: Block Frida and other vulnerable frameworks such as Xposed frameworks used for SSL Pinning bypass, Block Hooking, Block network packet attack tools. We are not providing SSL Pinning."
What AppSecurity Does Do
While AppSecurity does not implement pinning itself, it provides strong protection against the tools and techniques most commonly used to bypass certificate pinning at runtime:
Frida Detection
Frida is the most widely used tool for bypassing SSL pinning on both Android and iOS. It works by injecting a JavaScript agent into the running app process and hooking the certificate validation functions. AppSecurity detects Frida's presence and terminates the app before the injection can take effect.