Certified Android Exploit Developer
I'm proud to share that I've completed the Android Userland Fuzzing & Exploitation course by MobileHackingLab, including the practical exam.
What the Course Covers
This course focuses on Android exploitation at the native level. The topics covered include:
- ARM Assembly and Shellcode - Understanding ARM architecture and writing custom shellcode
- Reverse Engineering Android Native Components - Analyzing native libraries and binaries
- Fuzzing and Crash Analysis - Finding vulnerabilities through automated testing
- Memory Info Leak Exploitation - Bypassing ASLR through information disclosure
- Stack Overflows and ROP Chains - Classic stack-based exploitation with Return-Oriented Programming
- Heap Exploitation Techniques - Advanced memory corruption in the heap
The Exam
The course concludes with a hands-on 72-hour practical exam where all topics come together in real-world attack scenarios and full exploit chains. Successfully completing this exam grants the Certified Android Exploit Developer certification.
Course Infrastructure
The course uses Corellium-based devices for emulation, which means the setup is really fast and you can get hands-on immediately. No time wasted configuring environments.
You also get a practice VM with all the tools pre-installed and structured. This is really handy as everything is ready to go from the start.
My Thoughts
This is a high-value, well-structured course. MobileHackingLab delivered technically deep and hands-on training. The course material is well-organized and the practical labs provide real experience in developing working exploits against Android userland targets.
One thing I particularly enjoyed was working with ARM architecture. Before, I only had x86 experience, so this was a great opportunity to expand into ARM exploitation.
Recommendations Before Starting
If you're planning to take this course, here are my recommendations:
- ROP Chain experience - It helps to have prior experience with ROP chains. I recommend pwn.college to build that foundation before diving in.
- Fuzzing fundamentals - If you want to learn more about fuzzing, check out Fuzzing101 by Antonio Morales. It's a great resource to get comfortable with fuzzing concepts.
- Engage in the Discord community - The MobileHackingLab Discord is very active and helpful. Don't hesitate to ask questions and interact with other students and instructors. When I had a question, I usually got a response within minutes.
If you're interested in mobile security and exploit development, I highly recommend checking out MobileHackingLab.
Next up: the Kernel course.
Read my LinkedIn post about this.
