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The number and variety of Internet-connected devices have grown enormously in the past few years, presenting new challenges to security and privacy. Research has shown that network adversaries can use traffic rate metadata from consumer IoT…
Information hiding techniques are increasingly utilized by the current malware to hide its existence and communication attempts. In this paper we highlight this new trend by reviewing the most notable examples of malicious software that…
Smartphones contain information that is more sensitive and personal than those found on computers and laptops. With an increase in the versatility of smartphone functionality, more data has become vulnerable and exposed to attackers.…
Cellular providers and data aggregating companies crowdsource celluar signal strength measurements from user devices to generate signal maps, which can be used to improve network performance. Recognizing that this data collection may be at…
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…
With the popularity of smartphones, mobile applications (apps) have penetrated the daily life of people. Although apps provide rich functionalities, they also access a large amount of personal information simultaneously. As a result,…
Mobile applications are required to give privacy notices to the users when they collect or share personal information. Creating consistent and concise privacy notices can be a challenging task for developers. Previous work has attempted to…
With the releases of Android Oreo and Pie, Android introduced some background execution limitations for apps. Google restricted the execution of background services to save energy and to prevent apps from running endlessly in the…
With the rapid growth of mobile apps, users' concerns about their privacy have become increasingly prominent. Android app logs serve as crucial computer resources, aiding developers in debugging and monitoring the status of Android apps,…
A "privacy behavior" in software is an action where the software uses personal information for a service or a feature, such as a website using location to provide content relevant to a user. Programmers are required by regulations or…
Opaque predicates are a well-established fundamental building block for software obfuscation. Simplified, an opaque predicate implements an expression that provides constant Boolean output, but appears to have dynamic behavior for static…
To counter man-at-the-end attacks such as reverse engineering and tampering, software is often protected with techniques that require support modules to be linked into the application. It is well-known, however, that attackers can exploit…
PowerShell is a powerful and versatile task automation tool. Unfortunately, it is also widely abused by cyber attackers. To bypass malware detection and hinder threat analysis, attackers often employ diverse techniques to obfuscate…
Real-time, online-editing web apps provide free and convenient services for collaboratively editing, sharing and storing files. The benefits of these web applications do not come for free: not only do service providers have full access to…
A blind spot is any input to a program that can be arbitrarily mutated without affecting the program's output. Blind spots can be used for steganography or to embed malware payloads. If blind spots overlap file format keywords, they…
The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is probably the most used and customized operating system for smartphones and IoT devices worldwide. Its market share and high adaptability makes Android an interesting operating system for many…
Recent developments in online tracking make it harder for individuals to detect and block trackers. Some sites have deployed indirect tracking methods, which attempt to uniquely identify a device by asking the browser to perform a…
Code obfuscation is widely adopted in modern software development to protect intellectual property and hinder reverse engineering, but it also provides attackers with a powerful means to conceal malicious logic inside otherwise legitimate…
Compared to cryptography, steganography is a less discussed domain. However, there is a recent trend of exploiting various information hiding techniques to empower malware, for instance to bypass security frameworks of mobile devices or to…
In recent decades, criminals have increasingly used the web to research, assist and perpetrate criminal behaviour. One of the most important ways in which law enforcement can battle this growing trend is through accessing pertinent…