Related papers: The Transitivity of Trust Problem in the Interacti…
The security of Android has been recently challenged by the discovery of a number of vulnerabilities involving different layers of the Android stack. We argue that such vulnerabilities are largely related to the interplay among layers…
A common security architecture is based on the protection of certain resources by permission checks (used e.g., in Android and Blackberry). It has some limitations, for instance, when applications are granted more permissions than they…
Never before has any OS been so popular as Android. Existing mobile phones are not simply devices for making phone calls and receiving SMS messages, but powerful communication and entertainment platforms for web surfing, social networking,…
Like many desktop operating systems in the 1990s, Android is now in the process of including support for multi-user scenarios. Because these scenarios introduce new threats to the system, we should have an understanding of how well the…
A common security architecture, called the permission-based security model (used e.g. in Android and Blackberry), entails intrinsic risks. For instance, applications can be granted more permissions than they actually need, what we call a…
Fragmentation is a serious problem in the Android ecosystem. This problem is mainly caused by the fast evolution of the system itself and the various customizations independently maintained by different smartphone manufacturers. Many…
Android apps cooperate through message passing via intents. However, when apps do not have identical sets of privileges inter-app communication (IAC) can accidentally or maliciously be misused, e.g., to leak sensitive information contrary…
Horizontal integration of access technologies to networks and services should be accompanied by some kind of convergence of authentication technologies. The missing link for the federation of user identities across the technological…
Android is designed with a number of built-in security features such as app sandboxing and permission-based access controls. Android supports multiple communication methods for apps to cooperate. This creates a security risk of app…
Due to the amount of data that smartphone applications can potentially access, platforms enforce permission systems that allow users to regulate how applications access protected resources. If users are asked to make security decisions too…
With the digital breakthrough, smart phones have become very essential component. Mobile devices are very attractive attack surface for cyber thieves as they hold personal details (accounts, locations, contacts, photos) and have potential…
Smartphone apps usually have access to sensitive user data such as contacts, geo-location, and account credentials and they might share such data to external entities through the Internet or with other apps. Confidentiality of user data…
Researchers and commercial companies have made a lot of efforts on detecting malware in Android platform. However, a recent malware threat, App collusion, makes malware detection challenging. In App collusion, two or more Apps collaborate…
Many Android applications collect data from users. When they do, they must protect this collected data according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the…
As smartphones become increasingly more powerful, a new generation of highly interactive user-centric mobile apps emerge to make user's life simpler and more productive. Mobile phones applications have to sustain limited resource…
The login functionality, being the gateway to app usage, plays a critical role in both user experience and application security. As Android apps increasingly incorporate login functionalities, they support a variety of authentication…
Mobile applications (a.k.a., apps), which facilitate a large variety of tasks on mobile devices, have become indispensable in our everyday lives. Accomplishing a task may require the user to navigate among various apps. Unlike Web pages…
As mobile app usage continues to rise, so does the generation of extensive user interaction data, which includes actions such as swiping, zooming, or the time spent on a screen. Apps often collect a large amount of this data and claim to…
Contemporary mobile applications (apps) are designed to track, use, and share users' data, often without their consent, which results in potential privacy and transparency issues. To investigate whether mobile apps have always been…
Mobile devices are used more and more in everyday life. They are our cameras, wallets, and keys. Basically, they embed most of our private information in our pocket. For this and other reasons, mobile devices, and in particular the software…