Quick Start Guide

Start NeedleAgent

• Open the NeedleAgent app on your device.
• Then, tap on Listen in the top left corner and it will start listening on port 4444 by default. This can be changed using the field in the top right.

Start Needle

Standard usage

To launch Needle, just open a console and type:

$ python needle.py
      __  _ _______ _______ ______         ______
      | \ | |______ |______ | \     |      |______
      | \_| |______ |______ |_____/ |_____ |______
                  Needle v1.0 [mwr.to/needle] 
    [MWR InfoSecurity (@MWRLabs) - Marco Lancini (@LanciniMarco)]

[needle] > help
Commands (type [help|?] <topic>):
---------------------------------
back exit info kill pull reload search shell show use
exec_command help jobs load push resource set shell_local unset

[needle] > show options
Name          Current Value   		Required   Description
------------  -------------   		--------   -----------
AGENT_PORT    4444                  yes       Port on which the Needle Agent is listening
APP                            		no        Bundle ID of the target application (e.g., com.example.app). Leave empty to launch wizard
DEBUG         False            		yes       Enable debugging output
IP            127.0.0.1        		yes       IP address of the testing device (set to localhost to use USB)
OUTPUT_FOLDER /root/.needle/output  yes       Full path of the output folder, where to store the output of the modules
PASSWORD      ******           		yes       SSH Password of the testing device
PORT          2222             		yes       Port of the SSH agent on the testing device (needs to be != 22 to use USB)
PUB_KEY_AUTH  True                  yes       Use public key auth to authenticate to the device. Key must be present in the ssh-agent if a 
SAVE_HISTORY  True                  yes       Persists command history across sessions
USERNAME      root             		yes       SSH Username of the testing device
VERBOSE       True             		yes       Enable verbose output

[needle] >

You will be presented with Needle's command line interface.

The tool has some global options (listed with the "show options" command, and set with the "set <option> <value>" command):

• USERNAME, PASSWORD: SSH credentials of the testing device (set by default to "root" and "alpine", respectively)
• PUB_KEY_AUTH: Use public key authentication to authenticate to the device. Key must be present in the ssh-agent if a passphrase is used
• IP, PORT: the session manager embedded in the core of Needle is able to handle SSH connections over Wi-Fi or USB. If SSH-over-USB is the chosen method, the IP option must be set to localhost ("set IP 127.0.0.1"), and PORT set to anything different from 22 ("set PORT 2222")
• AGENT_PORT: Port on which the NeedleAgent installed on the device is listening to
• APP: this is the bundle identifier of the app to analyse (e.g., "com.example.app"). If it is not known beforehand, this field can be left empty. In this case, Needle will launch a wizard which prompts the user to select an app among those already installed on the device
• OUTPUT_FOLDER: this is the full path of the output folder, where Needle will store the output of the modules
• SAVE_HISTORY: if set to True, the command history will be persisted across sessions
• VERBOSE, DEBUG: if set to True, they will enable verbose and debug logging, respectively

Device Dependencies

Note that installation of dependencies has now been moved to its own module (use device/dependency_installer)

Automated, using a resource file

Configuration of the global options can also be automated, using a resource file. First, create a resource file with the commands you want to have automatically executed. For example:

$ cat config.txt
# This is a comment, it won't be executed
set DEBUG False
set VERBOSE False

# If SETUP_DEVICE is set to True, 
# Needle will automatically install all the required tools on the device
set SETUP_DEVICE False

set IP 192.168.0.10
set PORT 5555
set APP com.example.app
use binary/info/metadata

Then, launch Needle and instruct it to load the resource file:

python needle.py -r config.txt