Binding

When the Shielding Tool is run in the standard way (i.e., directly from the command line), it will automatically perform binding.

Binding an application to App Shielding renders the application useless if App Shielding is prevented from running. App Shielding provides an application with protection from various forms of attack. Much of this protection depends on App Shielding itself running. So an attacker could try to circumvent some of App Shielding’s protections by running the application without invoking App Shielding. Binding protects against such an attack.

Binding can be disabled for troubleshooting with the --no-bind option. This option should not be used for a public release, since it reduces App Shielding’s ability to protect the application significantly.

App Shielding does not currently support binding on x86 or x86_64 architectures. So when building for x86 or x86_64, binding is automatically disabled. This is typically only used when building for simulator, so normally it is not important. But it does mean that simulator builds are much easier to attack, so it is strongly recommended not to ship simulator builds to potential attackers.