Static analysis of malicious Android applications

To perform dynamic analysis of the previously identified malicious Android application, we ran it in a controlled environment with the help of Joe Sandbox. In contrast to dynamic analysis, static analysis allows an examiner to understand malware behavior without actually running it. Let's start the static analysis of our malware sample, beginning with unpacking it.

Unpacking Android applications

To view the contents of an APK file, you can use any archiver. A good example is 7-Zip, a free and open source archiver, which is available here: https://www.7-zip.org/download.html.

To unpack an APK file, right-click on it, choose 7-Zip, and then Open archive:

Contents of an...