PT Maze Service for protecting mobile applications from reverse engineering

2025: Presentation of the PT MAZE service

Positive Technologies on May 21, 2025 introduced PT MAZE, a service for protecting mobile applications from reverse engineering. The service is designed to make hacking expensive for an attacker and force him to abandon the idea of ​ ​ attacking.

Insufficient code security remains one of the most common application issues. In addition, in the OWASP Top 10 ranking, this security issue moved from 10th place in 2014 to 7th in 2024. Cyber ​ ​ threat lies in the ability to reverse-engineer, which in the hands of attackers becomes a dangerous tool for hacking mobile software. With its help, hackers can search for vulnerabilities, create clones of applications that are almost indistinguishable from the originals, steal the intellectual property of developers, and also attack citizens to steal money or personal data.

The service is based on a protector that combines the best world development practices and Positive Technologies expertise in the study of the security of mobile software. For more than 10 years, ethical hackers Positive Technologies have been conducting research, including reverse engineering of thousands of applications, gaining experience and knowledge of how to make them difficult to vacuum.

PT MAZE is suitable for any company, regardless of industry specifics, in the business processes of which mobile applications are involved. First of all, the service may be of interest to banks, fintech companies and retailers. For May 2025, PT MAZE works with two mobile OS - Android and iOS - and is provided with full service support from Positive Technologies.

Reverse engineering cannot be prohibited or excluded: a hacker will always be able to modify applications, read their memory, or use code fragments at his discretion. However, you can complicate this process by providing good code protection, "said Nikolai Anisenya, head of development at PT MAZE. - PT MAZE turns the application, figuratively speaking, into an impassable labyrinth for intruders. By calculating the monetary, expert and time costs of a successful hack, hackers will abandon the idea of ​ ​ looking for a way out of it and shift their interest towards easier targets. Thus, reliable code protection will save your business from losses due to unacceptable reverse engineering events.

Opposition to reverse engineering in the format of services is still poorly distributed in Russia, there were no applied tools in the industry, and most of the protection measures used cannot be a serious obstacle to attackers. PT MAZE helps prevent reverse engineering, which can be carried out by hackers to clone, modify, intentionally unlock paid or limiting functions, and to implement subsequent steps of attacks on the company's infrastructure.

The vast majority of applications are complex systems with a large surface for attacks. These programs, as a rule, can store personal, credentials, payment data, so they are always in the focus of the attackers' attention. The protection of mobile applications should be paid careful attention to both their creators and companies that have already purchased ready-made software or ordered its development. In particular, for business, hacking any service available to external users is a potential entry point into the corporate perimeter, serves as a springboard for the subsequent development of attacks and carries a large number of various risks, said Olga Ringler, head of the Positive Technologies research project group.