Research & Evaluation
Explore in-depth investigations, reproducible workflows, and empirical studies carried out using FirmwareDroid to analyze Android firmware images and pre-installed software.
Pre-installed Malware, Botnets, and Trojanized Firmware
Low-cost streaming hardware based on AllWinner and Rockchip chipsets often ships with pre-installed malicious software directly in factory ROMs. We use FirmwareDroid to unpack system images, trace trojanized ADB daemons, and catalog malicious APKs communicating with ad-fraud infrastructure.
Multi-Engine Static Inspection & Unified GraphQL Triage
While FMD specializes in full firmware extractions, researchers frequently need to triage suspicious individual APKs. This study demonstrates queuing an app through AndroGuard, MobSF, Exodus-Core, and APKLeaks, aggregating findings into a consolidated GraphQL query.
Towards Automated Static Analysis of Pre-Installed Android Apps
Published at the 10th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems (MOBILESoft 2023), this empirical study introduced FirmwareDroid's architecture and evaluated 75,141 unique pre-installed applications across seven OS vendors.
Conduct Your Own Research
FirmwareDroid is designed for repeatability and automated analysis. Deploy the Docker Compose stack to inspect firmware images and extract pre-installed applications.