Research On Firmware Dissection Techniques Of Symbian Smartphones

Firmware dissection has been significant for smart phones in respect of security test and vulnerability mining. Symbian smartphones possess great majority phone market of the world. Therefore, research on the firmware dissection technique has become important and meaningful.The research starts from the analysis of Symbian OS infrastructure and security properties. It sets up a process model for Symbian smartphones'firmware dissection by utilizing the work of digital forensic process model. Designed the memory detect and dumping method which is more reliable than traditional firmware acquisition methods. Also designs and realizes a system image file peeling-off tool through studying the firmware image file format.Generates a library function name document based on XML by matching the rebuilt import section of E32 file along with the corresponding .lib file. Based on the XML document, designs and achieves a prototype system for analyzing the firmware function module structure. Via static and dynamic analysis of the function module structure, we can find out files with dangerous functions and files used for Symbian OS exception handling from the peeled-off system image files. This will help to distinguish whether the security problems existing in the function module or not, as well as provide useful information for vulnerability mining in the function module.