Top all-time · #4595
Guardsquare Blog
Company blog · guardsquare.com/en/blogsecurityprogramming
Guardsquare Blog is the company blog at guardsquare.com, writing about security and programming. Since 2016, 17 different Hacker News readers have linked it 42 times, most often “Prevent bypassing of SSL certificate pinning in iOS applications”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Guardsquare's blog for mobile app security research, such as iOS SSL certificate pinning circumvention. Most comments are job ads from the company rather than remarks on the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Guardsquare is the leader in mobile application security, with multi-layered protection for your Android and iOS apps. Learn more.
Most-linked posts?
- Prevent bypassing of SSL certificate pinning in iOS applications4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-03-28
- Reducing the footprint of your Android resources2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-06-20
- Reversing Flutter Apps2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-12
What Hacker News says?
There's at least one plugin for LLVM to obfuscate strings from binaries [1], and for Android there is DexGuard [2]. The general idea is to make life as difficult as possible for reverse engineers, crackers and whomever else - hardcoded stuff just showing up in "cat .binfile | strings" is about the first thing I do when investigating some random stuff, and there's tools like binwalk that can automatically do stuff li…
Comment linking /dexguard
on “Hacking 700M Electronic Arts accounts”Submitted Android vulnerability allows attackers to modify apps as a story · 115 points
HN discussionGuardSquare | Leuven, Belgium | ONSITE | Full-Time | LLVM/C++ We are looking for a passionate compiler hacker with a strong interest in software security. You should be comfortable with large codebases and acquainted with the latest development practices and tools. You are familiar with the Mach and/or Linux kernel and definitely not afraid of disassemblers or debuggers. Company: GuardSquare is the global reference…
Comment linking /jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2016)”Submitted String Concatenation in Java 9: Untangling InvokeDynamic as a story · 5 points
HN discussionGuardSquare | Software Engineer C++ / LLVM | Leuven, Belgium | Full-Time | On-Site GuardSquare is looking for a software engineer with an interest in software security. You have knowledge of compiler technologies (LLVM) or the Mach and/or Linux kernel and you are definitely not afraid of disassemblers and debuggers. Our team is building iXGuard, software that protects iOS applications through obfuscation and encrypt…
Comment linking /en/jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2017)”Submitted String concatenation in Java 9: Conversion confusion as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe standard way of frustrating decompilers for Android applications is with heavy obfuscation using ProGuard [1] or DexGuard. [2] IMO, DexGuard is a real pain in the ass to reverse around. If you aren't dealing with heavy obfuscation, decompiling APKs is trivial using jadx. [3] In general I have found that most smaller app developers don't obfuscate at all, and often you can find hardcoded keys/secrets in these sma…
Comment linking /en/dexguard
on “Reverse-engineering the Starbucks ordering API”Submitted Prevent bypassing of SSL certificate pinning in iOS applications as a story · 4 points
HN discussionGuardSquare | Leuven, Belgium | ONSITE | Full-Time | LLVM/C++ We are looking for a passionate compiler hacker with a strong interest in software security. You should be comfortable with large codebases and acquainted with the latest development practices and tools. You are familiar with the Mach and/or Linux kernel and definitely not afraid of disassemblers or debuggers. Company: GuardSquare is the global reference…
Comment linking /jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2016)”Submitted AppSweep, mobile application scanning for developers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionGuardSquare | Software Engineer C++ / LLVM | Leuven, Belgium | Full-Time | On-Site GuardSquare is looking for a software engineer with an interest in software security. You have knowledge of compiler technologies (LLVM) or the Mach and/or Linux kernel and you are definitely not afraid of disassemblers or debuggers. For more information have a look at our website, where you can apply online: https://www.guardsquare.c…
Comment linking /en/jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2017)”Submitted Why Your AI Coding Hero Needs a Security Sidekick as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGuardSquare | Software Engineer C++ / LLVM | Leuven, Belgium | Full-Time | On-Site GuardSquare is looking for a software engineer with an interest in software security. You have knowledge of compiler technologies (LLVM) or the Mach and/or Linux kernel and you are definitely not afraid of disassemblers and debuggers. Our team is building iXGuard, software that protects iOS applications through obfuscation and encrypt…
Comment linking /en/jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2017)”Submitted ProGuard 20th Anniversary: 20 years of Java shrinking and optimization as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGuardsquare | Compiler engineers | Leuven, Belgium; Gent, Belgium; Munich, Germany | Onsite/hybrid Guardsquare develops state of the art mobile application protection solutions, for Android and iOS. The company grew from the open-source ProGuard Java shrinker, which started as a hobby project 20 years, into the market leader for application protection. We're looking for Java and C++ compiler engineers among other ro…
Comment linking /careers
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2022)”Submitted Making the Most Out of iOS Crash Reports with LLDB as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGuardsquare | Compiler engineers | Leuven, Belgium; Gent, Belgium; Munich, Germany | Onsite/hybrid Guardsquare develops state of the art mobile application protection solutions, for Android and iOS. The company grew from the open-source ProGuard Java shrinker, which started as a hobby project 20 years, into the market leader for application protection. We're looking for Java and C++ compiler engineers among other ro…
Comment linking /careers
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2022)”Submitted DexGuard Optimization for the Google Gson Library as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGuardsquare | Compiler engineers | Leuven, Belgium; Gent, Belgium; Munich, Germany | Onsite/hybrid Guardsquare develops state of the art mobile application protection solutions, for Android and iOS. The company grew from the open-source ProGuard Java shrinker, which started as a hobby project 20 years, into the market leader for application protection. We're looking for Java and C++ compiler engineers among other ro…
Comment linking /careers
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2022)”Submitted Obfuscating JavaScript Code with DexGuard as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIf I had to guess why you had issues, the app probably had certificate pinning. Apple makes it pretty easy to pin domains, but it's also not too difficult to circumvent it. This looks to cover it pretty well: https://www.guardsquare.com/blog/leveraging-infoplist-based-...
Comment linking /blog/leveraging-infoplist-based-certificate-pinning-ios-and-making-its-shortcomings
on “Mitmproxy 7.0”Submitted ProGuard and R8 as a story · 2 points
HN discussion>Is the only way to patch the app binary and reinstall the patched binary using a dev certificate? Yes >How exactly does one go about patching the binary – is there a tutorial somewhere? https://www.guardsquare.com/en/blog/iOS-SSL-certificate-pinn...
Comment linking /en/blog/iOS-SSL-certificate-pinning-bypassing
on “Charles Proxy now available on iOS”Submitted Reducing the footprint of your Android resources as a story · 2 points
HN discussionJFYI: iOS does not use openssl (however an app might choose to use it). I believe it uses a FIPS compliant custom TLS implementation in Security.framework. I believe ssl pinning is circumvented on iOS by leveraging the objective-c runtime to hook the callbacks that an app would use to inspect the remote peer certificate. More info: https://www.guardsquare.com/en/blog/iOS-SSL-certificate-pinn...
Comment linking /en/blog/iOS-SSL-certificate-pinning-bypassing
on “Experiments and leaking company secrets through your testing infrastructure”Submitted Prevent bypassing of SSL certificate pinning in iOS applications as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGuardsquare | Compiler engineers | Leuven, Belgium; Gent, Belgium; Munich, Germany | Onsite/hybrid Guardsquare develops state of the art mobile application protection solutions, for Android and iOS. The company grew from the open-source ProGuard Java shrinker, which started as a hobby project 20 years ago, into the market leader for application protection. We're looking for Java and C++ compiler engineers among othe…
Comment linking /careers
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2023)”Submitted Bypassing of SSL certificate pinning in iOS applications as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGuardsquare | Compiler engineers | Leuven, Belgium; Gent, Belgium; Munich, Germany | Onsite/hybrid Guardsquare develops state of the art mobile application protection solutions, for Android and iOS. The company grew from the open-source ProGuard Java shrinker, which started as a hobby project 20 years ago, into the market leader for application protection. We're looking for Java and C++ compiler engineers among othe…
Comment linking /careers
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2022)”Submitted Reverse Engineering Flutter Apps as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
