README.md

My-Thesis-Android-App-Forensic

This is my thesis project, we study Android phone forensic topic and focus only on the user app, which means we skip default app which come from OEM. The input can be an raw disk image or a rooted phone. This research made me realize the nature of digital forensic, the role of mobile platform in investigation and how it affects the order and law.

How does it works:

• Automatically collect all useful file such as date, media, sqlite file and plain text document from smartphone.
• Automatically analyze apk.
• Automatically arrange and display the result.
• Not doing yet, Automatically extract information for archive file.
• Notice that the output doesn't follow any legal evidence's format.

How to use this app:

• Install basic tools
  • Python 3
  • mysql-connector, Androiguard, matplotlib, folium
  • Nodejs, Angularjs
  • XAMPP
• Clone and exact project
• Run cmd_databases.py, run only once to create the database
• Run demo_preprare_datasheet.py to create datasheet, user has to define the app and it's external directory's name by themselves
• To reset app: run delete.bat, this action will delete all databases and temporary file. User has to adjust temporary file's localtion inside the code
• Add new folder named api in htdocs (Ex: /xampp/htdocs/api/)
• Copy all file in folder php to folder /api
• Create an react app
• Copy all file in folder Angular/android-forensic/src/ to folder src in your reactjs app.
• Turn on Apache, MySQL in XAMPP, use your browser to browse to http://localhost/api/, click get_report.php, if you saw the returned data is in json format without error, you'd complete installing process.

To analyze:

• By using command Prompt or PowerShell:
  • cd into python folder
  • Type python tools_android_apk_finfo_collection.py --input <link_to_img>
• By using web UI:
  • Run web_binding.py by command Prompt or PowerShell
  • Run Reactjs app
  • Turn on Apache, MySQL in XAMPP
  • Use your browser to browse to localhost:4200, fill file'path in form (Ex: E:\raw_image_disk\abcxyz.dd), click Analysis
  • Incompleted Analysis will come below
  • Completed Analysis will appear above afer finish, you can track it on command Prompt or PowerShell

Note 1: the file format must be raw, dd, iso or img, if not, you have to use VboxManage to convert. Type:

VBoxManage.exe clonehd input.vdi Output.img --format raw

Note 2 at the first running time, web_binding.py must be run first so it can create it's own table in DB

To clone Android phone storage:

• Run clone.py in "tools" directory, type: python clone.py --name <link_to_img>, it'll automatically check adb and connection
• The output will be located at the same folder with clone.py

Note 3: adb client must be replaced to suite the adb server (version)

To view web report

• Turn on Apache in XAMPP or run run_xampp.bat
• Run run_angularjs.bat
• Browse to localhost:4200

To visualize the gathered information:

• Copy report's id from web report or web_binding.py's window
• Run python data_visualate.py --plot --map --report <report_id>
• Currently, this app support only android 7.0

Results

The web report likes this. Report list shows the info of smartphone storage Report from Android 4 - overview Report from Android 7 - overview Report from Android 4 - cert Report from Android 4 - file and media Report from Android 4 - playing video Report from Android 4 - source analysis Report from Android 7 - graph call and chat freq Report from Android 7 - graph call time Report from Android 7 - map