Dockerized Android: a container-based platform to build mobile Android scenarios for Cyber Ranges

TL;DR

This paper introduces Dockerized Android, a container-based platform for creating virtual mobile environments in Cyber Ranges, enabling safe emulation of mobile devices for security training and scenario development.

Contribution

It presents a novel framework that allows emulating vulnerable mobile Android environments within Cyber Ranges using container technology.

Findings

Demonstrated the platform's ability to create complex mobile attack scenarios.

Showed improved performance and resource efficiency in virtual mobile environment deployment.

Enabled safe testing of mobile security vulnerabilities without real-world risks.

Abstract

The best way to train people about security is through Cyber Ranges, i.e., the virtual platform used by cyber-security experts to learn new skills and attack vectors. In order to realize such virtual scenarios, container-based virtualization is commonly adopted, as it provides several benefits in terms of performance, resource usage, and portability. Unfortunately, the current generation of Cyber Ranges does not consider mobile devices, which nowadays are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Such devices do often represent the very first entry point for hackers into target networks. It is thus important to make available tools allowing to emulate mobile devices in a safe environment without incurring the risk of causing any damage in the real world. This work aims to propose Dockerized Android, i.e., a framework that addresses the problem of realizing vulnerable environments for mobile devices in the next generation of Cyber Ranges. We show the platform's design and implementation and show how it is possible to use the implemented features to realize complex virtual mobile kill-chains scenarios.