analyzing-android-malware-with-apktool

name	analyzing-android-malware-with-apktool
description	Perform static analysis of Android APK malware samples using apktool for decompilation, jadx for Java source recovery, and androguard for permission analysis, manifest inspection, and suspicious API call detection. Use when performing static analysis of android apk malware samples using apktool.
domain	cybersecurity
subdomain	malware-analysis
tags	["Android","APK","apktool","jadx","androguard","mobile-malware","static-analysis","reverse-engineering"]
version	1.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	["DE.AE-02","RS.AN-03","ID.RA-01","DE.CM-01"]

Analyzing Android Malware with Apktool

Overview

Android malware distributed as APK files can be statically analyzed to extract permissions, activities, services, broadcast receivers, and suspicious API calls without executing the sample. This skill uses androguard for programmatic APK analysis, identifying dangerous permission combinations, obfuscated code patterns, dynamic code loading, reflection-based API calls, and network communication indicators.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "analyzing android malware with apktool"

• "Perform static analysis of Android APK malware samples using apktool for decompi"

• When investigating security incidents that require analyzing android malware with apktool

• When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain

• When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type

• When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+ with androguard
• apktool (for resource decompilation)
• jadx (for Java source recovery, optional)
• Isolated analysis environment (VM or sandbox)
• Sample APK files for analysis

Steps

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": r"\b[a-f0-9]{64}\b",
}

def extract_iocs(text: str) -> dict:
    return {k: re.findall(v, text) for k, v in IOC_PATTERNS.items()}

1. Parse APK with androguard to extract manifest metadata
2. Enumerate requested permissions and flag dangerous combinations
3. List activities, services, receivers, and providers from manifest