Nick Bova introduces himself as having experience in IT and mainframes for 6 years. He has been refactoring the FinExpert virtual machine and finex programming language. The presentation will cover the basics, tools, and .dex file format for the Dalvik Virtual Machine (DVM) used in Android. It will also discuss DVM bytecode, real-life Android hacking, and an intro to obfuscation. Details on obfuscation, Native Development Kit debugging, and .Net hacking will be out of scope. Sources mentioned include a book on decompiling Android and a video on Dalvik VM internals.

1. Inside DVM
Intro
Nick Bova
@mykola_bova
Nov 23 2013

2. About myself
• In IT since 2000
• 6 years with mainframes
• Refactoring FinExpert virtual machine and
finex programming language
• Many assemblers in institute
• Twitter – @mykola_bova

3. Who am I?
Android developer? – NO
Java System Architect? - YES

4. Who are you?

5. Who are you?
Android development?
Java development?
Reverse engineering?
JVM/DVM internals?
JVM/DVM assembler development?

6. Ground rules

7. Ground rules
- Please keep your questions until Q&A section
- Or let’s put your questions to flipchart
- Some small presents for good questions /
answers from Levi9 Ukraine
- Small presents will be just passed to winner (no
much time for ceremonies, sorry)
- Please feel free to help if you have what to add
during Q&A section

8. Why do we need reverse engineering?

9. Why do we need reverse engineering?
0 – understanding virtual machine internals
1 – investigate existing solutions
2 – protect your application in case of using
sensitive information

10. Why do we need reverse engineering?
0 – understanding virtual machine internals
I have a dream.

11. I have a dream.
Educational JVM
- Clear and simple
- Written on java
- Accomplished with book

12. What do you want to hear?

13. What we can discuss
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
basics
tools
*.dex file format
DVM byte code (inside DVM)
"real life" android hacking
obfuscation (just very very begining)

14. What is out of scope?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Detailed trip to obfuscation
Debugging NDK calls
Hacking .Net code (xamarin)
All existing DVM related tools (too much)

15. Sources
- Book “Decompiling Android” Godfrey Nolan
- Video “Dalvik VM Internals”
https://sites.google.com/site/io/dalvik-vminternals

16. Q&A