Book Image

Android Security Cookbook

Book Image

Android Security Cookbook

Overview of this book

Android Security Cookbook discusses many common vulnerabilities and security related shortcomings in Android applications and operating systems. The book breaks down and enumerates the processes used to exploit and remediate these vulnerabilities in the form of detailed recipes and walkthroughs. The book also teaches readers to use an Android Security Assessment Framework called Drozer and how to develop plugins to customize the framework. Other topics covered include how to reverse-engineer Android applications to find common vulnerabilities, and how to find common memory corruption vulnerabilities on ARM devices. In terms of application protection this book will show various hardening techniques to protect application components, the data stored, secure networking. In summary, Android Security Cookbook provides a practical analysis into many areas of Android application and operating system security and gives the reader the required skills to analyze the security of their Android devices.

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Small book image
Android Security Cookbook
Dec, 2013 | 350 pages
No titles found
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Android Security Cookbook
Android Security Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Android Development Tools
Android Development Tools
Introduction
Installing the Android Development Tools (ADT)
Installing the Java Development Kit (JDK)
Updating the API sources
Alternative installation of the ADT
Installing the Native Development Kit (NDK)
Emulating Android
Creating Android Virtual Devices (AVDs)
Using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) to interact with the AVDs
Copying files off/onto an AVD
Installing applications onto the AVDs via ADB
2
Engaging with Application Security
Engaging with Application Security
Introduction
Inspecting application certificates and signatures
Signing Android applications
Verifying application signatures
Inspecting the AndroidManifest.xml file
Interacting with the activity manager via ADB
Extracting application resources via ADB
3
Android Security Assessment Tools
Android Security Assessment Tools
Introduction
Installing and setting up Santoku
Setting up drozer
Running a drozer session
Enumerating installed packages
Enumerating activities
Enumerating content providers
Enumerating services
Enumerating broadcast receivers
Determining application attack surfaces
Launching activities
Writing a drozer module – a device enumeration module
Writing an application certificate enumerator
4
Exploiting Applications
Exploiting Applications
Introduction
Information disclosure via logcat
Inspecting network traffic
Passive intent sniffing via the activity manager
Attacking services
Attacking broadcast receivers
Enumerating vulnerable content providers
Extracting data from vulnerable content providers
Inserting data into content providers
Enumerating SQL-injection vulnerable content providers
Exploiting debuggable applications
Man-in-the-middle attacks on applications
5
Protecting Applications
Protecting Applications
Introduction
Securing application components
Protecting components with custom permissions
Protecting content provider paths
Defending against the SQL-injection attack
Application signature verification (anti-tamper)
Tamper protection by detecting the installer, emulator, and debug flag
Removing all log messages with ProGuard
Advanced code obfuscation with DexGuard
6
Reverse Engineering Applications
Reverse Engineering Applications
Introduction
Compiling from Java to DEX
Decompiling DEX files
Interpreting the Dalvik bytecode
Decompiling DEX to Java
Decompiling the application's native libraries
Debugging the Android processes using the GDB server
7
Secure Networking
Secure Networking
Introduction
Validating self-signed SSL certificates
Using StrongTrustManager from the OnionKit library
SSL pinning
8
Native Exploitation and Analysis
Native Exploitation and Analysis
Introduction
Inspecting file permissions
Cross-compiling native executables
Exploitation of race condition vulnerabilities
Stack memory corruption exploitation
Automated native Android fuzzing
9
Encryption and Developing Device Administration Policies
Encryption and Developing Device Administration Policies
Introduction
Using cryptography libraries
Generating a symmetric encryption key
Securing SharedPreferences data
Password-based encryption
Encrypting a database with SQLCipher
Android KeyStore provider
Setting up device administration policies
Index
Index

About the Reviewers

Miguel Catalan Bañuls is a young engineer whose only purpose is to try and make his little contribution to changing the world. He is mainly a software developer, but is actually a team leader.

He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering and is a partner at Geeky Theory. Also, he is the vice president of the IEEE Student Branch of the Miguel Hernandez University (UMH in Spanish).

I want to thank both my spouse and my parents for their patience and understanding as they have to share me with my work.

Seyton Bradford is a software developer and an engineer with over 10 years experience in mobile device security and forensics.

He currently works at viaForensics as a Senior Software Engineer focusing on app and mobile device security.

He has presented his work across the globe and acted as a reviewer for academic journals.

I'd like to thank my family and friends for their support for my career and work.

Nick Glynn is currently employed as a technical trainer and consultant delivering courses and expertise on Android, Python, and Linux at home in the UK and across the globe. He has a broad range of experience, from board bring-up, Linux driver development, and systems development through to full-stack deployments, web app development, and security hardening for both the Linux and Android platforms.

I would like to thank my family for their love, and my beautiful baby girl Inara for always brightening my day.

Rui Gonçalo is finishing his Masters thesis at University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, in the field of Android security. He is developing a new feature that aims at providing users with fine-grained control over Internet connections. His passion for mobile security arose from attending lectures on both cryptography and information systems security at the same university, and from several events held by the most important companies in the field in Portugal. He provides the point of view of an Android security beginner who sees this book as a must read for those keen to become security experts.

I would like to thank the staff at Packt Publishing in charge of this book for making me absolutely sure that mobile security will fulfill my needs in the world of software.

Elliot Long grew up in Silicon Valley and has been creating mobile apps since 2005. He is the co-founder of the mobile travel guide producer mycitymate SL/GmbH. Since 2009, he has worked as Lead Android and BlackBerry Developer for Intohand Ltd.

Previous Section
Next Chapter