Great question! The short answer is no, you can't directly use Windows' ReadProcessMemory API to read an Android app's memory — let's break down why, and cover the alternatives that work within the Android ecosystem.

First, ReadProcessMemory is a Windows-specific kernel-level API built to interact with Windows' process memory model. Android runs on a Linux kernel, which uses a completely different set of memory management rules and inter-process access mechanisms. That tool simply isn't designed to cross the OS boundary like that.

If you want to read an Android app's memory, here's what you need to know and do:

• Root (or debug access) is non-negotiable: Android's security sandbox blocks regular apps from accessing other processes' memory. To read another app's memory, you'll either need root privileges on the device, or be working with a debuggable build of your own app (which only lets you access your own app's memory).

• Use Linux's /proc filesystem: Linux exposes process-related data through the virtual /proc directory. For memory access:

  • Find your target app's process ID (PID) using tools like ps or pidof.
  • Check /proc/[pid]/maps to get the memory regions mapped by the app — this tells you the start/end addresses and permissions of each region.
  • Open /proc/[pid]/mem (with root) and seek to the address you want to read, then read the content directly from this file.

• Use specialized tools:

  • GDB: Attach to the Android process using gdbserver on the device and a host GDB client. Once attached, you can use commands like dump memory output.bin 0x12345678 0x12345678+0x100 to extract specific memory chunks.
  • Frida: A popular dynamic instrumentation toolkit that makes memory reading straightforward. You can write simple scripts to enumerate modules, find base addresses, and read memory. For example, Memory.readByteArray(ptr("0x12345678"), 0x100) would read 256 bytes from the specified address.
  • Custom native code: If you want to build your own tool, use the Linux ptrace() system call. This lets a process attach to another, then read/write its memory using PTRACE_PEEKDATA requests.

• Watch out for ASLR: Android uses Address Space Layout Randomization, which randomizes the base address of app modules every time the app launches. You'll need to parse /proc/[pid]/maps to get the actual runtime base address before calculating the offset of the memory you want to read.

Just a heads-up: Tampering with process memory can violate app security policies, and doing this on non-rooted, non-debuggable devices is impossible due to Android's security safeguards.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Joe fuzzy