Skip to content

Conversation

@carlospolop
Copy link
Collaborator

🤖 Automated Content Update

This PR was automatically generated by the HackTricks News Bot based on a technical blog post.

📝 Source Information

  • Blog URL: https://github.com/lautarovculic/frida-ipa-extract
  • Blog Title: frida-ipa-extract
  • Suggested Section: 📱 Mobile Pentesting → iOS Pentesting → iOS Frida Configuration (or a new subpage like "Dumping/Extracting decrypted IPA (FairPlay) with Frida")

🎯 Content Summary

frida-ipa-extract is a robust Frida-based iOS reversing/security tool that extracts a decrypted iOS application as a portable .ipa from a jailbroken device. It was created after reliability issues with frida-ios-dump and targets modern workflows: App Store installs, sideloaded apps, and system apps.

Why this works (how iOS app encryption/decryption works at runtime)
Many App Store apps are stored on disk in an encrypted...

🔧 Technical Details

Runtime-decryption extraction via dynamic instrumentation: When an iOS app is stored encrypted on disk (DRM/FairPlay), its decrypted contents become accessible at runtime once the app is loaded. By spawning or attaching to the target process with Frida (via frida-server on a jailbroken device), you can access the runtime-decrypted state and repackage the retrieved bundle into a decrypted .ipa for offline analysis.

Stability tactic for anti-instrumentation/jailbreak detection: If attaching causes timeouts or crashes, prefer spawning with -f and keep the process suspended using --no-resume. This reduces the window where anti-Frida/anti-jailbreak checks execute while still allowing controlled extraction attempts.

Performance/reliability improvement by separating instrumentation from transfer: Use SSH mode to SFTP files and optionally tunnel to frida-server port 27042. If both ...

🤖 Agent Actions

Updated basic-ios-testing-operations.md with a new section on frida-ipa-extract covering requirements, setup, usage, transport modes, stability flags, and troubleshooting for dumping decrypted IPAs via Frida with SSH/SFTP support. Added the tool’s repository to the references.


This PR was automatically created by the HackTricks Feed Bot. Please review the changes carefully before merging.

@carlospolop
Copy link
Collaborator Author

🔗 Additional Context

Original Blog Post: https://github.com/lautarovculic/frida-ipa-extract

Content Categories: Based on the analysis, this content was categorized under "📱 Mobile Pentesting → iOS Pentesting → iOS Frida Configuration (or a new subpage like "Dumping/Extracting decrypted IPA (FairPlay) with Frida")".

Repository Maintenance:

  • MD Files Formatting: 939 files processed

Review Notes:

  • This content was automatically processed and may require human review for accuracy
  • Check that the placement within the repository structure is appropriate
  • Verify that all technical details are correct and up-to-date
  • All .md files have been checked for proper formatting (headers, includes, etc.)

Bot Version: HackTricks News Bot v1.0

@carlospolop
Copy link
Collaborator Author

merge

@carlospolop carlospolop merged commit dc5fb7d into master Jan 22, 2026
@carlospolop carlospolop deleted the update_frida-ipa-extract_20260120_063430 branch January 22, 2026 21:10
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants