Mobile App Shield Overview

Published April 15, 2025 | Last modified June 4, 2026

F5 Distributed Cloud Mobile App Shield integrates directly into your iOS and Android mobile applications to provide proactive security against a wide range of attacks, such as code hooking, debugging, code injection, code modification and app data theft, without affecting the user experience.

Shielding an app is a post-build process that does not require any code changes and that you can integrate into your CI/CD pipeline.

With Mobile App Shield, your mobile apps are hardened against threats, which helps your business meet mobile app regulatory requirements, such as PCI DSS 4.01, PRD2, and GDPR.

Key Protections

Protect App Functionality	Detect Threats	React to Threats
- Execution flow control - Process integrity - Code obfuscation	- Jailbroken and Rooted devices - Repackaging - Debugger - Emulator - Hooking - Screenshot - Overlay - Key-logger	- Report - Block - Exit App

How it works

Mobile App Shield is a command-line tool that works on a built app. Shielding requires no code changes and is easy to configure.

A typical shielding process involves running commands similar to the following:

Android

java -jar ../Shield/Integrator.jar ./app.apk \
--config ../config.xml \
--plugin path/to/F5-XC-Mobile-SDK-Integrator-Android-plugin-5.5.2.dat \
--plugin apiguard.dat \
--output ./shielded.apk \
--keystore ../demo.keystore --storepass testapp --keyname testkeys --keypass testapp

iOS

java -jar Integrator.jar --standalone
   --config config.xml \
   --plugin path/to/F5-XC-Mobile-SDK-Integrator-iOS-plugin-4.4-7.dat \
   --plugin apiguard.dat \
   original.ipa \
   --out shielded.ipa

These commands inject the Mobile App Shield libraries into the app and bind the libraries to the existing application code. Mobile App Shield code loads along with the application to implement protection. Once you shield an app, you cannot remove Mobile App Shield from the app.

Subscription and Billing

Mobile App Shield is a subscription service. Pricing is based on the active monthly user count. You can evaluate the service for free for 60 days.

Documentation

For configuration information, see the product documentation that is included with the Mobile App Shield product download.

References