Related papers: Security Issues in the Android Cross-Layer Archite…
We introduce a novel type system for enforcing secure information flow in an imperative language. Our work is motivated by the problem of statically checking potential information leakage in Android applications. To this end, we design a…
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…
Mobile databases are the statutory backbones of many applications on smartphones, and they store a lot of sensitive information. However, vulnerabilities in the operating system or the app logic can lead to sensitive data leakage by giving…
Privacy concerns have long been expressed around smart devices, and the concerns around Android apps have been studied by many past works. Over the past 10 years, we have crawled and scraped data for almost 1.9 million apps, and also stored…
The widespread use of smartphones in daily life has raised concerns about privacy and security among researchers and practitioners. Privacy issues are generally highly prevalent in mobile applications, particularly targeting the Android…
Android OS supports multiple communication methods between apps. This opens the possibility to carry out threats in a collaborative fashion, c.f. the Soundcomber example from 2011. In this paper we provide a concise definition of collusion…
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…
Despite its widespread use in Android apps, reflection poses graving problems for static security analysis. Currently, string inference is applied to handle reflection, resulting in significantly missed security vulnerabilities. In this…
The Android ecosystem is vulnerable to issues such as app repackaging, counterfeiting, and piracy, threatening both developers and users. To mitigate these risks, developers often employ code obfuscation techniques. However, while effective…
Expecting the shipment of 1 billion Android devices in 2017, cyber criminals have naturally extended their vicious activities towards Google's mobile operating system. With an estimated number of 700 new Android applications released every…
The Android permission system is a set of controls to regulate access to sensitive data and platform resources (e.g., camera). The fast evolving nature of Android permissions, coupled with inadequate documentation, results in numerous…
Mobile gaming applications (apps) have become increasingly pervasive, including a growing number of games designed for children. Despite their popularity, these apps often integrate complex analytics, advertising, and attribution…
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…
Android is an open source mobile operating system that is developed mainly by Google. It is used on a significant portion of mobile devices worldwide. In this paper, I will be looking at an attack commonly known as tapjacking. I will be…
Android's permission system is designed to balance usability with informed consent, yet two legacy mechanisms still undermine that balance in Android 16: (i) permission groups that silently auto-grant new permissions within a group after a…
In the last 10 years, cache attacks on Intel x86 CPUs have gained increasing attention among the scientific community and powerful techniques to exploit cache side channels have been developed. However, modern smartphones use one or more…
Networked applications interact with the TCP/IP stack through the socket API. Over the years, various extensions have been added to this popular API. In this paper, we propose and implement the TCPSnitch software that tracks the…
Security of Android devices is now paramount, given their wide adoption among consumers. As researchers develop tools for statically or dynamically detecting suspicious apps, malware writers regularly update their attack mechanisms to hide…
The Android ecosystem faces a notable challenge known as fragmentation, which denotes the extensive diversity within the system. This issue is mainly related to differences in system versions, device hardware specifications, and…
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…