Tools for the reverse engineering of mobile applications
We learned in the last chapter that Android apps, as well as iOS apps, come in a specific format (APK or IPA), which is nothing but a compressed (.zip) version of all the application files and most importantly the compiled binary file.
When we start with the reverse engineering of mobile apps, the primary goal is to understand the internals of the application, including its features and implemented security controls, and reconstruct as much original code as possible. To do this in a mobile application, the first step is to decompress or, more specifically, decompile the application package itself.
When you start, the first step is to get the application package (APK or IPA) and decompress it. To do that, you need a simple utility that decompresses a compressed file (.zip). Some such utilities come preinstalled with most Linux operating systems.
Just start your newly created Ubuntu virtual machine and start Terminal.
...