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This paper presents a measurement study of information leakage and SSL vulnerabilities in popular Android apps. We perform static and dynamic analysis on 100 apps, downloaded at least 10M times, that request full network access. Our…
The popularity of JavaScript has lead to a large ecosystem of third-party packages available via the npm software package registry. The open nature of npm has boosted its growth, providing over 800,000 free and reusable software packages.…
Version control systems for source code, such as Git, are key tools in modern software development environments. Many developers use online services, such as GitHub or GitLab, for collaborative software development. While software projects…
Smartphones hold important private information, yet users routinely expose this information to questionable applications written by developers they know nothing about. Users may be tempted to think of smartphones as old-style dumb phones,…
[Background] Web communication is universal in cyberspace, and security risks in this domain are devastating. [Aims] We analyzed the prevalence of six security smells in mobile app servers, and we investigated the consequence of these…
The increasing frequency of attacks on Android applications coupled with the recent popularity of large language models (LLMs) necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the capabilities of the latter in identifying potential…
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…
Increasing number of cyber-attacks demotivate people to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for industrial as well as day to day work. A main reason for the increasing number of cyber-attacks is mistakes that programmers make…
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…
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…
Despite continuous efforts to build and update network infrastructure, mobile devices in developing regions continue to be constrained by limited bandwidth. Unfortunately, this coincides with a period of unprecedented growth in the size of…
The widespread use of smartphones and tablets has made society heavily reliant on mobile applications (apps) for accessing various resources and services. These apps often handle sensitive personal, financial, and health data, making app…
Android is among the popular platforms running on millions of smart devices, like smartphones and tablets, whose widespread adoption is seen as an opportunity for spreading malware. Adding malicious payloads to cracked applications, often…
The number of smartphones, tablets, sensors, and connected wearable devices are rapidly increasing. Today, in many parts of the globe, the penetration of mobile computers has overtaken the number of traditional personal computers. This…
Super-apps have emerged as comprehensive platforms integrating various mini-apps to provide diverse services. While super-apps offer convenience and enriched functionality, they can introduce new privacy risks. This paper reveals a new…
Privacy in apps is a topic of widespread interest because many apps collect and share large amounts of highly sensitive information. In response, China introduced a range of new data protection laws over recent years, notably the Personal…
Previous work has investigated the particularities of security practices within specific user communities defined based on country of origin, age, prior tech abuse, and economic status. Their results highlight that current security…
Mini-programs, an emerging mobile application paradigm within super-apps, offer a seamless and installation-free experience. However, the adoption of the web-view component has disrupted their isolation mechanisms, exposing new attack…
Third-party security apps are an integral part of the Android app ecosystem. Many users install them as an extra layer of protection for their devices. There are hundreds of such security apps, both free and paid in Google Play Store and…
Mobile apps are used in a variety of health settings, from apps that help providers, to apps designed for patients, to health and fitness apps designed for the general public. These apps ask the user for, and then collect and leak a wealth…