Santoku: A Linux Distribution for Mobile Forensics

Santoku Linux is a Ubuntu Based Distribution that is focused on Mobile Forensics, Analysis, and Security. It comes with pre-installed platform drivers SDKs, and utilities and also allows auto-detection and setup of new connected mobile devices. It is a free and open community project sponsored by NowSecure.

It is always suggested you, do not install the Santoku Linux as your native Operating System, so install it on Virtualization software like VMware or VirtualBox to prepare for network-level attacks on Android devices.

Let’s take a look at its installation steps and overlook its basic scenarios.

Steps to Install Santoku Linux on VirtualBox  

1. Firstly, visit its official webpage and download the ISO image. 

Click here: http://santoku-linux.com/download/

2. Open VirtualBox and click on Create new.

3. Choose a descriptive name, select the type of the Operating System, and also select the version. 

4. Click next and allocate the size of the Memory. 

5. Click next and choose “create a virtual disk now”. 

6. From here choose the hard disk file type and click on next. 

7. From here set the size of the disk and then click on create.

8. Once a new Virtual Machine image is created, upload the disk image file to storage ( settings >> Storage).

9. Click on start, to boot the virtual machine, and then choose Install to start the installer directly.

10. Choose your preferred language and continue. 

11. This screen provides a piece of information about Santoku Linux. For better performance checkmark on install this third-party software and click on continue.

12. From here select the installation type to erase the disk and install Santoku. 

From here you no need to change anything else, so click on install to start the installation. 

The installation started in the background, no need to worry about it. So we proceed with further steps. 

13. Select the country and click on continue. 

14. Choose your keyboard layout and continue.

15. Provide the name and password. Now click on continue. Wait till the end of the installation, it might take time depending upon resources allocated to VM.

16. On completion of the process of installation, you need to restart the VMs in order to use the new installation.

17. Login with the password:

18. After installation, our first priority is to install the virtual box guest box addition. Before that let me update the repository using sudo apt-get update command. 

If you got something like this error, you have to upgrade the Ubuntu distribution. 

19. Upgrade Ubuntu Linux system from Santoku Menu à System Tools à Update Manager.

20. Click on Upgrade to upgrade the Ubuntu Distribution.

It will take time to complete the installation.

21. After the Distribution Upgrade, reboot the system. After a successful reboot, a new login screen will appear in front of the screen:

21. From the menu bar at the bottom section, click on Device and Insert Guest Additions CD image. Open the CD image in File manager. 

Click OK to Open VBox Guest Addition in File Manager:

22. Open the terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T. Change the directory to cd image.

santoku@santoku-virtualbox:~$ cd /media/santoku/VBox_GAs_x.xx.xx

23. Run the Virtual Box Linux addition script to complete the initialization.

santoku@santoku-virtualbox:/media/santoku/VBox_GAs_x.xx.xx$ sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

After completion reboot the system.

santoku@santoku-virtualbox:/media/santoku/VBox_GAs_x.xx.xx$ sudo reboot

Since each vulnerability analysis area requires different tools to examine the security configuration of the application, the tools of Santoku are categorized into five areas: 

• Development tools, 
• Device Forensics tools, 
• Penetration testing tools, 
• Reverse engineering tools, and 
• Wireless analyzers tools

In my next article, I am going to demonstrate the tools separately.