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Third-party libraries (TPLs) have become a significant part of the Android ecosystem. Developers can employ various TPLs to facilitate their app development. Unfortunately, the popularity of TPLs also brings new security issues. For…
Android apps collecting data from users must comply with legal frameworks to ensure data protection. This requirement has become even more important since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European…
Android filesystem access control provides a foundation for Android system integrity. Android utilizes a combination of mandatory (e.g., SEAndroid) and discretionary (e.g., UNIX permissions) access control, both to protect the Android…
Web communication has become an indispensable characteristic of mobile apps. However, it is not clear what data the apps transmit, to whom, and what consequences such transmissions have. We analyzed the web communications found in mobile…
"Incentivized" advertising platforms allow mobile app developers to acquire new users by directly paying users to install and engage with mobile apps (e.g., create an account, make in-app purchases). Incentivized installs are banned by the…
Mobile applications, particularly those from social media platforms such as WeChat and TikTok, are evolving into "super apps" that offer a wide range of services such as instant messaging and media sharing, e-commerce, e-learning, and…
In today's mobile application marketplace, the ability of consumers to make informed choices regarding their privacy is extremely limited. Consumers largely rely on privacy policies and app permission mechanisms, but these do an inadequate…
While the literature on permissions from the end-user perspective is rich, there is a lack of empirical research on why developers request permissions, their conceptualization of permissions, and how their perspectives compare with…
Android-based smart devices are exponentially growing, and due to the ubiquity of the Internet, these devices are globally connected to the different devices/networks. Its popularity, attractive features, and mobility make malware creator…
Websites use third-party ads and tracking services to deliver targeted ads and collect information about users that visit them. These services put users' privacy at risk, and that is why users' demand for blocking these services is growing.…
Mobile messaging apps are a fundamental communication infrastructure, used by billions of people every day to share information, including sensitive data. Security and Privacy are thus critical concerns for such applications. Although the…
In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of benign and malicious Android applications, based on static features. In particular, we focus our attention on the permissions requested by an application. We consider both binary…
Unlike the Web where each web page has a global URL to reach, a specific "content page" inside a mobile app cannot be opened unless the user explores the app with several operations from the landing page. Recently, deep links have been…
Mobile devices often distribute measurements from physical sensors to multiple applications using software multiplexing. On Android devices, the highest requested sampling frequency is returned to all applications, even if others request…
Smartphones are becoming more significant in storing and transferring data. However, techniques ensuring this data is not compromised after a confiscation of the device are not readily available. DroidStealth is an open source Android…
Android is a widely used operating system that employs a permission-based access control model. The Android Permissions System (APS) is responsible for mediating application resource requests. APS is a critical component of the Android…
Mobile apps are predominantly integrated with cloud services to benefit from enhanced functionalities. Adopting authentication using secrets such as API keys is crucial to ensure secure mobile-cloud interactions. However, developers often…
In my dissertation, I will analyze how the product market position of a mobile app affects its pricing strategies, which in turn impacts an app's monetization process. Using natural language processing and k-mean clustering on apps' text…
Android Malware has emerged as a consequence of the increasing popularity of smartphones and tablets. While most previous work focuses on inherent characteristics of Android apps to detect malware, this study analyses indirect features and…
Android applications collecting data from users must protect it according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since in 2018 the European Union rolled out the General Data Protection…