Mobile app penetration testing is a key checkpoint in every secure development lifecycle. It’s how teams validate that their apps are designed securely, handle data correctly, and protect users’ trust.
But not all penetration tests or ‘pentests’ are designed for the same purpose. There are two distinct types of mobile pentests, each with a different goal, scope, and outcome:
Understanding the difference between them is critical both for how your team prepares and for how Promon fits into your overall mobile security strategy.
Read more: How to understand your mobile app penetration test report
Regular penetration tests follow frameworks like OWASP ASVS or MASVS (Mobile Application Security Verification Standard). They are focused on finding security vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to gain access, steal data, or bypass controls. They function as an audit in which testers evaluate how the app is designed and built, not how it defends itself.
Weak authentication and session management
Unencrypted or improperly stored sensitive data
API misconfigurations and insecure communications
Missing or broken access controls
Unsafe input validation
Promon doesn’t perform or replace a regular pentest. Instead, Promon’s products complement it by helping your app stay secure after you’ve passed one.
During a regular pentest, testers usually require a build without runtime protections enabled, so they can freely inspect code, analyze flows, and uncover real vulnerabilities. After vulnerabilities are fixed, Promon’s application shielding, runtime protection, and attestation strengthen the app against future exploitation by making it harder for attackers to discover or weaponize flaws that were not discovered during the pentest.
Resilience pentests are far less common than regular pentests, and are highly specialized. They focus on verifying the defensive capabilities of an app under active attack based on OWASP MASVS-R. In this test, the goal isn’t to find vulnerabilities in your code logic, but to confirm your app’s ability to detect, resist, and respond to runtime manipulation, reverse engineering, and tampering attempts.
Resilience pentests are where Promon products help more directly. Promon SHIELD™ and related products provide runtime application self-protection (RASP) capabilities to immediately address MASVS-R requirements. They embed obfuscation, anti-tampering, anti-hooking, and environment integrity checks inside the app. This creates a self-defending layer that protects even when network or device security fails. In a resilience pentest, these are exactly the protections being tested and validated.
A resilience pentest asks: Can your app defend itself in a compromised environment? Promon’s products exist to make the answer yes.
Learn more: What is the OWASP MASVS?
Most organizations conduct regular pentests multiple times a year for compliance, certification, or product assurance. Resilience pentests are rarer. They are often one-off engagements led by critical sectors such as finance, banking, and healthcare. But frequency isn't the only difference. Resilience pentests test an entirely different dimension of security maturity.
| Regular pentest | Resilience pentest | |
| Goal | Find security vulnerabilities | Validate runtime defense strength |
| Framework | OWASP ASVS / MASVS-L1/2 | OWASP MASVS-R |
| Test focus | App design, data handling, API security | Anti-tampering, runtime protection, attestation |
| Conductor | AppSec teams of external pentesters | Specialized mobile security testers |
| Promon's role | Strengthen client-side security post-pentest | Directly tested and validated for resilience |
Promon enables both pentest types but in different ways.
For a regular pentest, you need to provide testers with a build that has Promon disabled, so they can find genuine vulnerabilities. Make sure your team documents security controls (encryption, authentication, input validation). The best mindset is to treat every finding as a chance to strengthen the app before release.
For a resilience pentest, you should provide a production build with Promon enabled, since this test validates runtime defenses. Run internal simulations first to confirm protections trigger i.e. hooking, rooting, and repackaging. Monitor your app during the test to capture logs, alerts, and environment integrity data.
Together, these two testing types give you full-spectrum assurance:
Security today is layered. Passing one type of pentest doesn’t mean your app is safe in the wild.
Promon bridges these worlds. By embedding runtime protections directly inside the app, attackers are hindered from finding further vulnerabilities, even in the face of tampering, reverse engineering, or hostile tools. This is what deep, inside-out app security achieves.
Every mobile app team must prepare for penetration testing. But the most mature teams go beyond passing tests by building apps that can endure. Application shielding uses techniques like code obfuscation to make is more difficult for attacks to access or reverse engineer the underlying code. And you can prove strength in resilience pentests by delivering proven runtime protection and attestation.
Download the Regular Pentest Readiness Checklist and the Resilience Pentest Readiness Checklist. These are practical tools for developers preparing for both types of testing.