Connecting an Android Emulator with Burp Suite
TLDR
This documentation is a guide on how to successfully connect an android emulator proxy with burp suite for Android Penetration Testing. The reason for this is that the official documentation for android studio and most YouTube tutorials on how to connect an android emulator with burp suite are a bit implicit.
Requirements
- Android Studio (Any android emulator)
- Burp Suite (Community Edition or Professional)
Note: This tutorial is demonstrated with Android Studio Hedgehog 2023.1.1 Patch 2 and Burp Suite Community Edition.
Step 1: Create a Virtual Device
Navigate to the hamburger on the top left of android studio > Tools > Device Manager
Then click on the plus (+) sign on device manager > Phone > select the device you want > Next > select a system image > Next > Finish.
Step 2: Create a New Proxy Listener in Burp Suite
Create a new proxy listener by navigating to Burp Settings > Proxy > Proxy listeners > Add > Binding > enter a port in “Bind to port” > select “specific address” > select your host ip address in the drop down > OK.
Then click on import / export CA certificate > certificate in DER format > Next > select file > choose a location to install burp certificate (use a “.crt” file extension to save it) > Next. This will generate a burp certificate which will be used on the android emulator.
Step 3: Install Burp Certificate on the Android Emulator
Cold boot the newly created android emulator and drag/drop the burp certificate exported to your host operating system to the android emulator. Then navigate to Settings on the android emulator and search for “Install certificates” in the search bar. Select the one for Wi-Fi > Install certificates > select the burp certificate > name it > OK.
Lastly, navigate to the Wi-Fi settings of the Android emulator and select the edit icon (a pen on the top right). Set the Proxy to “Manual”, Proxy hostname to “your-host-os-ip-address”, and the Proxy port to the same port set on burp listener.
Step 4: Configure the Android Emulator Proxy Setting
Click on more (the three dots at the bottom of the device) to open up “Extended Controls”.
In Extended Controls, select Settings > Proxy > Manual proxy configuration. Then set the Host name to your “host-os-ip-address”, Port number to the same port on burp listener. Then click “Apply”. A success Proxy status should be displayed.
Step 5: Verify that traffic is being intercepted by Burp
Navigate to Proxy and turn on intercept. On the android emulator, search for anything on a web browser and the traffic should be intercepted by burp.
