Reverse Engineering Android Application

Scenario

 

You’ve intercepted a suspicious Android app, that contains secret data. Your task is to reverse-engineer the app, uncover hidden data, and retrieve the flag. To solve this challenge, you’ll need to demonstrate your reverse engineering and basic Android penetration testing skills.

 

Objective

Find the flag hidden within the APK by reverse-engineering it

Prerequisites

• Download the APK file
• Install APKTool for decompiling the APK
• Install JADX For reverse engineering and inspecting the Java code.

Decompile the APK using APKTool

Decompile the APK file and explore.

apktool d app-debug.apk

Reverse Engineering the APK file

Use JADX to open the APK file

jadx-gui app-debug.apk

Navigate through the app’s MainActivity and resources. Have checked the strings.xml, to get the flag

Conclusion

In conclusion, this blog post has explored how to use the specified tools decompile, analyze, and reverse engineer Android application to test the basic Android penetration testing skills.