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Mobile app stores are the key distributors of mobile applications. They regularly apply vetting processes to the deployed apps. Yet, some of these vetting processes might be inadequate or applied late. The late removal of applications might…
As foundation models have accumulated hundreds of millions of users, developers have begun to take steps to prevent harmful types of uses. One salient intervention that foundation model developers adopt is acceptable use policies: legally…
In December of 2020, Apple started to require app developers to self-report privacy label annotations on their apps indicating what data is collected and how it is used.To understand the adoption and shifts in privacy labels in the App…
While there have been various studies towards Android apps and their development, there is limited discussion of the broader class of apps that fall in the fake area. Fake apps and their development are distinct from official apps and…
In the Google Play store, an introduction page is associated with every mobile application (app) for users to acquire its details, including screenshots, description, reviews, etc. However, it remains a challenge to identify what items…
Given the increasing competition in mobile app ecosystems, improving the experience of users has become a major goal for app vendors. This article introduces a visionary app store, called APP STORE 2.0, which exploits crowdsourced…
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…
Vendors in the Android ecosystem typically customize their devices by modifying Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, adding in-house developed proprietary software, and pre-installing third-party applications. However, research has…
In this study, the authors develop a structural model that combines a macro diffusion model with a micro choice model to control for the effect of social influence on the mobile app choices of customers over app stores. Social influence…
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…
Millions of mobile apps have been available through various app markets. Although most app markets have enforced a number of automated or even manual mechanisms to vet each app before it is released to the market, thousands of low-quality…
The value of mobile apps is traditionally measured by metrics such as the number of downloads, installations, or user ratings. A problem with these measures is that they reflect actual usage at most indirectly. Indeed, analytic companies…
Fraudulent behaviors in Google Android app market fuel search rank abuse and malware proliferation. We present FairPlay, a novel system that uncovers both malware and search rank fraud apps, by picking out trails that fraudsters leave…
Mobile-phone advertising enables marketers to reach customers at a personal level and it enables the measure of costumers reaction by novel approaches, in real time, and at scale. By keeping a device anonymous, we can deliver custom adverts…
Android applications are executed on smartphones equipped with a variety of resources that must be properly accessed and controlled, otherwise the correctness of the executions and the stability of the entire environment might be negatively…
There are over one million apps on Google Play Store and over half a million publishers. Having such a huge number of apps and developers can pose a challenge to app users and new publishers on the store. Discovering apps can be challenging…
App repackaging refers to the practice of customizing an existing mobile app and redistributing it in the wild. In this way, the attacker aims to force some mobile users to install the repackaged(likely malicious) app instead of the…
This paper reports a large-scale study that aims to understand how mobile application (app) vulnerabilities are associated with software libraries. We analyze both free and paid apps. Studying paid apps was quite meaningful because it…
In this paper, we propose to identify compromised mobile devices from a network administrator's point of view. Intuitively, inadvertent users (and thus their devices) who download apps through untrustworthy markets are often allured to…
Android devices are equipped with many pre-installed applications which have the capability of tracking and monitoring users. Although applications coming pre-installed pose a great danger to user security and privacy, they have received…