By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
World of SoftwareWorld of SoftwareWorld of Software
  • News
  • Software
  • Mobile
  • Computing
  • Gaming
  • Videos
  • More
    • Gadget
    • Web Stories
    • Trending
    • Press Release
Search
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. World of Software.
Reading: Building Smarter Cyber Ranges with Dockerized Android | HackerNoon
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
World of SoftwareWorld of Software
Font ResizerAa
  • Software
  • Mobile
  • Computing
  • Gadget
  • Gaming
  • Videos
Search
  • News
  • Software
  • Mobile
  • Computing
  • Gaming
  • Videos
  • More
    • Gadget
    • Web Stories
    • Trending
    • Press Release
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. World of Software.
World of Software > Computing > Building Smarter Cyber Ranges with Dockerized Android | HackerNoon
Computing

Building Smarter Cyber Ranges with Dockerized Android | HackerNoon

News Room
Last updated: 2025/10/16 at 6:40 PM
News Room Published 16 October 2025
Share
Building Smarter Cyber Ranges with Dockerized Android | HackerNoon
SHARE

:::info
Authors:

(1) Daniele Capone, SecSI srl, Napoli, Italy ([email protected]);

(2) Francesco Caturano, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Information, Technology University of Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy ([email protected])

(3) Angelo Delicato, SecSI srl, Napoli, Italy ([email protected]);

(4) Gaetano Perrone, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy ([email protected])

(5) Simon Pietro Romano, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy ([email protected]).

:::

Table of Links

Abstract and I. Introduction

II. Related Work

III. Dockerized Android: Design

IV. Dockerized Android Architecture

V. Evaluation

VI. Conclusion and Future Developments, and References

VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

In this work, we have described Dockerized Android, a platform that supports cyber-range designers in realizing mobile virtual scenarios. The application is based on Docker, i.e., a container-based virtualization framework extensively adopted in the cyber-range field for several benefits already mentioned. We described the main components and showed how it is possible to realize a complex cyber kill-chain scenario that involves the utilization of Bluetooth components. The architecture has been conceived at the outset as an extensible one. Its feature set can be dynamically enabled or disabled through the docker-compose creator, and some fine-grained options can be configured to customize the scenarios. The strength of this system is its ability to quickly run a mobile component through Docker, with many interesting features out of the box. Furthermore, the centralization of several components increases the overall usability level. The cons are all related to compatibility issues with Windows and OS X when running the Core for Emulator. While the former will probably be solved with the next updates, the latter is not solvable without significant changes to the OS X implementation. Another limitation is the lack of support for emulating some hardware components, e.g., Bluetooth. For these reasons, the Linux environment as a host machine is strongly recommended. We will also assess the potential benefits of using Dockerized Android in cloud-based environments in future works. Other improvements include the full integration of security-based features in the Android Emulator. For example, the GPS location could be useful to simulate a realistic route traveled by a simulated user. In recent works, cyber ranges are configured by using the high-level SDL (Specification and Description Language) representation [8]. Integrating this language in Dockerized Android is relatively easy, as every feature is set through Docker environment variables. Additional efforts will be focused on improving automation features, such as the design of an event-based architecture to simulate complex sequential actions involving human interaction.

REFERENCES

[1] Jan Vykopal et al. “Lessons learned from complex hands-on defence exercises in a cyber range”. In: 2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). 2017, pp. 1–8. DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2017.8190713.

[2] Adam McNeil and W. Stuart Jones. Mobile Malware is Surging in Europe: A Look at the Biggest Threats. https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/email-and-cloudthreats/mobile-malware- surging-europe-look- biggestthreats. Online; 14-May-2022. 2022.

[3] René Mayrhofer et al. “The Android Platform Security Model”. In: ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security 24.3 (Aug. 2021), pp. 1–35. DOI: 10 . 1145/ 3448609. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/3448609.

[4] Ryotaro Nakata and Akira Otsuka. “CyExec*: A HighPerformance Container-Based Cyber Range With Scenario Randomization”. In: IEEE Access 9 (2021), pp. 109095–109114. DOI: 10 . 1109 / ACCESS . 2021 . 3101245.

[5] Ryotaro Nakata and Akira Otsuka. Evaluation of vulnerability reproducibility in container-based Cyber Range. 2020. DOI: 10.48550/ARXIV.2010.16024. URL: https: //arxiv.org/abs/2010.16024.

[6] Francesco Caturano, Gaetano Perrone, and Simon Pietro Romano. “Capturing flags in a dynamically deployed microservices-based heterogeneous environment”. In: 2020 Principles, Systems and Applications of IP Telecommunications (IPTComm). 2020, pp. 1–7. DOI: 10.1109/IPTComm50535.2020.9261519.

[7] Muhammad Mudassar Yamin, Basel Katt, and Vasileios Gkioulos. “Cyber ranges and security testbeds: Scenarios, functions, tools and architecture”. In: Computers & Security 88 (Jan. 2020), p. 101636. DOI: 10. 1016/ J. COSE.2019.101636.

[8] Enrico Russo, Luca Verderame, and Alessio Merlo. “Enabling Next-Generation Cyber Ranges with Mobile Security Components”. In: IFIP International Conference on Testing Software and Systems. Springer, 2020, pp. 150–165.

[9] Giuseppe Trotta Andrea Pierini. From APK to Golden Ticket. https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/english/44032- from- apk-to- golden-ticket.pdf. [Online; accessed 01- March-2021]. 2017.

[10] Genymotion. Android as a Service. https : / / www . genymotion.com/. [Online; accessed 1-March-2021].

[11] Corellium. ARM Device Virtualization. https : / / corellium.com/. [Online; accessed 10-March-2021].

[12] Android Emulator. https : / / developer . android . com / studio/run/emulator. Accessed: 11-01-2021.

[13] thyrlian. AndroidSDK. https : / / github . com / thyrlian / AndroidSDK. [Online; accessed 10-March-2021].

[14] budtmo. docker-android. https:// github. com/ budtmo/ docker-android. [Online; accessed 10-March-2021].

[15] bitrise-io. android. https://github.com/bitrise-io/android. [Online; accessed 10-March-2021].

[16] MobSF. Mobile Security Framework. https : / / www . github . com / MobSF / Mobile – Security – Framework – MobSF. [Online; accessed 1-March-2021].

[17] Dockerfile best practices. https : / / docs . docker. com / develop / develop – images / dockerfile _ best – practices/. Accessed: 13-02-2021.

[18] Flaticon. Free vector icons. https://www.flaticon.com/. [Online; accessed 17-April-2021].

[19] Frida. Frida. https://frida.re/. Online; 13-May-2022.

[20] Anonymized authors. Dockerized Android github repo. . In order to adhere to the double-blind review principle, the github repo information has been obfuscated and will be made available if and when the paper is accepted.

[21] Android-Exploits. https : / / github . com / sundaysec / Android – Exploits / blob / master / remote / 44242 . md. [Online; accessed 19-April-2021].

[22] Ben Seri and Gregory Vishnepolsky. BlueBorne – The dangers of Bluetooth implementations: Unveiling zero day vulnerabilities and security flaws in modern Bluetooth stacks. Tech. rep. Armis, 2017.

[23] Armis Security. BlueBorne. https://www.armis.com/ research/blueborne/. Online; 13-May-2022. 2017.

:::info
This paper is available on arxiv under CC by-SA 4.0 Deed (Attribution-Sahrealike 4.0 International license.

:::

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Email Print
Share
What do you think?
Love0
Sad0
Happy0
Sleepy0
Angry0
Dead0
Wink0
Previous Article EVs Are Still Kicking: Here Are 12 Electric Cars You Can Get for Under ,000 EVs Are Still Kicking: Here Are 12 Electric Cars You Can Get for Under $40,000
Next Article OnePlus is rolling out OxygenOS 16, and you can check when your phone is getting Android 16 OnePlus is rolling out OxygenOS 16, and you can check when your phone is getting Android 16
Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay Connected

248.1k Like
69.1k Follow
134k Pin
54.3k Follow

Latest News

How Long Do OLED TVs Actually Last? Here’s What Experts Say – BGR
How Long Do OLED TVs Actually Last? Here’s What Experts Say – BGR
News
Bougainville’s Offshore Financial Authority: A New Licensing Opportunity for Startups
Bougainville’s Offshore Financial Authority: A New Licensing Opportunity for Startups
Gadget
Elsevier journal under fire over ‘AI-generated’ review comments
Elsevier journal under fire over ‘AI-generated’ review comments
Software
Ending soon! Dell’s holiday sale includes an RTX 50-series laptop for just 9 plus 13 other deals I’d shop
Ending soon! Dell’s holiday sale includes an RTX 50-series laptop for just $849 plus 13 other deals I’d shop
News

You Might also Like

Linux GPIB Drivers Declared Stable – 53 Years After HP Introduced The Bus
Computing

Linux GPIB Drivers Declared Stable – 53 Years After HP Introduced The Bus

3 Min Read
Go’s 16th Anniversary and the Major Highlights of 2025 | HackerNoon
Computing

Go’s 16th Anniversary and the Major Highlights of 2025 | HackerNoon

12 Min Read
The HackerNoon Newsletter: How To Get a First Name Domain for Less Than 1 (12/7/2025) | HackerNoon
Computing

The HackerNoon Newsletter: How To Get a First Name Domain for Less Than $101 (12/7/2025) | HackerNoon

4 Min Read
30 years after Microsoft went ‘all-in’ on the internet, its AI strategy feels like a big-budget remake
Computing

30 years after Microsoft went ‘all-in’ on the internet, its AI strategy feels like a big-budget remake

12 Min Read
//

World of Software is your one-stop website for the latest tech news and updates, follow us now to get the news that matters to you.

Quick Link

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Topics

  • Computing
  • Software
  • Press Release
  • Trending

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

World of SoftwareWorld of Software
Follow US
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. World of Software.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?