While researching a bug bounty target, I came across a web application that processed a custom file type which was actually just a ZIP file that contains an XML that functions as a manifest. If handled naively, this packaging pattern creates additional security issues. These “vulnerabilities” are actually features built into the XML and ZIP formats. Responsibility falls onto XML and ZIP parsers to handle these features safely. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, especially when developers simply use the default settings.

The Spring Boot framework is one of the most popular Java-based microservice frameworks that helps developers quickly and easily deploy Java applications. With its focus on developer-friendly tools and configurations, Spring Boot accelerates the development process. However, these development defaults can become dangerous in the hands of inexperienced developers.

Diving straight into reverse-engineering iOS apps can be daunting and time-consuming. While wading into the binary can pay off greatly in the long run, it’s also useful to start off with the easy wins, especially when you have limited time and resources. One such easy win is hunting login credentials and API keys in iOS applications.

I wanted to get into mobile app pentesting. While it’s relatively easy to get started on Android, it’s harder to do so with iOS. For example, while Android has Android Virtual Device and a host of other third-party emulators, iOS only has a Xcode’s iOS Simulator, which mimics the software environment of an iPhone and not the hardware. As such, iOS app pentesting requires an actual OS device.