Related papers: PolyScope: Multi-Policy Access Control Analysis to…
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a fast-growing wireless technology with a large number of potential use cases, particularly in the IoT domain. Increasingly, these use cases require the storage of sensitive user data or critical device…
Repackaging is a serious threat to the Android ecosystem as it deprives app developers of their benefits, contributes to spreading malware on users' devices, and increases the workload of market maintainers. In the space of six years, the…
App repackaging refers to the practice of customizing an existing mobile app and redistributing it in the wild to fool the final user into installing the repackaged app instead of the original one. In this way, an attacker can embed…
The Android platform introduces the runtime permission model in version 6.0. The new model greatly improves data privacy and user experience, but brings new challenges for app developers. First, it allows users to freely revoke granted…
Existing research typically treats privacy policies as flat, uniform text, extracting information without regard for the document's logical hierarchy. Disregard for structural cues of section headings designed to guide the reader, often…
Ransomware core capability, unauthorized encryption, demands controls that identify and block malicious cryptographic activity without disrupting legitimate use. We present a probabilistic, risk-based access control architecture that…
Mobile applications (hereafter, apps) collect a plethora of information regarding the user behavior and his device through third-party analytics libraries. However, the collection and usage of such data raised several privacy concerns,…
Many Android applications embed webpages via WebView components and execute JavaScript code within Android. Hybrid applications leverage dedicated APIs to load a resource and render it in a WebView. Furthermore, Android objects can be…
Android employs a permission framework that empowers users to either accept or deny sharing their private data (for example, location) with an app. However, many apps tend to crash when they are denied permission, leaving users no choice…
In recent years, there has been rapid growth in mobile devices such as smartphones, and a number of applications are developed specifically for the smartphone market. In particular, there are many applications that are ``free'' to the user,…
Android has been the most popular smartphone system, with multiple platform versions (e.g., KITKAT and Lollipop) active in the market. To manage the application's compatibility with one or more platform versions, Android allows apps to…
The major mobile platforms, Android and iOS, have introduced changes that restrict user tracking to improve user privacy, yet apps continue to covertly track users via device fingerprinting. We study the opportunity to improve this dynamic…
The daily amount of Android malicious applications (apps) targeting the app repositories is increasing, and their number is overwhelming the process of fingerprinting. To address this issue, we propose an enhanced Cypider framework, a set…
There is an increase in global malware threats. To address this, an encryption-type ransomware has been introduced on the Android operating system. The challenges associated with malicious threats in phone use have become a pressing issue…
We show that the new hover (floating touch) technology, available in a number of today's smartphone models, can be abused by any Android application running with a common SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission to record all touchscreen input into…
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 applications are required to give privacy notices to 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 help…
Smartphone technology has drastically improved over the past decade. These improvements have seen the creation of specialized health applications, which offer consumers a range of health-related activities such as tracking and checking…
Android applications (apps) grow dramatically in recent years. Apps are user interface (UI) centric typically. Rapid UI responsiveness is key consideration to app developers. However, we still lack a handy tool for profiling app performance…
Digital lending applications, commonly referred to as loan apps, have become a primary channel for microcredit in emerging markets. However, many of these apps demand excessive permissions and misuse sensitive user data for coercive…