Related papers: On the Usability (In)Security of In-App Browsing I…
In-app advertising closely relates to app revenue. Reckless ad integration could adversely impact app reliability and user experience, leading to loss of income. It is very challenging to balance the ad revenue and user experience for app…
The web browser is one of the major channels to access the Internet on mobile devices. Based on the smartphone usage logs from millions of real-world Android users, it is interesting to find that about 38% users have more than one browser…
The navigation of indoor spaces poses difficult challenges for individuals with visual impairments, as it requires processing of sensory information, dealing with uncertainties, and relying on assistance. To tackle these challenges, we…
Android applications are frequently plagiarized or repackaged, and software obfuscation is a recommended protection against these practices. However, there is very little data on the overall rates of app obfuscation, the techniques used, or…
Users need to configure default apps when they first start using their devices. The privacy configurations of the default apps do not always match what users think they have initially enabled. We first systematically evaluated the privacy…
A common security architecture, called the permission-based security model (used e.g. in Android and Blackberry), entails intrinsic risks. For instance, applications can be granted more permissions than they actually need, what we call a…
We conduct a large-scale measurement of developers' insecure practices leading to mini-app to super-app authentication bypass, among which hard-coding developer secrets for such authentication is a major contributor. We also analyze the…
The ubiquity of smartphones, and their very broad capabilities and usage, make the security of these devices tremendously important. Unfortunately, despite all progress in security and privacy mechanisms, vulnerabilities continue to…
The rise of mobile apps has brought greater convenience and many options for users. However, many apps use analytics services to collect a wide range of user interaction data, with privacy policies often failing to reveal the types of…
Mobile Graphical User Interface (GUI) agents have demonstrated strong capabilities in automating complex smartphone tasks by leveraging multimodal large language models (MLLMs) and system-level control interfaces. However, this paradigm…
Nowadays, mobile applications are essential tools for everyday life, providing users with anytime, anywhere access to up-to-date information, communication, and entertainment. Needless to say, hardware limitations and the diverse needs of…
Developers rely on third-party library Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) when developing software. However, libraries typically come with assumptions and API usage constraints, whose violation results in API misuse. API misuses may…
Part of what makes the web successful is that anyone can publish content and browsers maintain certain safety guarantees. For example, it's safe to travel between links and make other trust decisions on the web because users can always…
Ensuring usability is crucial for the success of mobile apps. Usability issues can compromise user experience and negatively impact the perceived app quality. This paper presents UX-LLM, a novel tool powered by a Large Vision-Language Model…
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…
Text entry makes up about one-fourth of the smartphone interaction events, and is known to be challenging and difficult. However, there has been little study about the characteristics of text entry in the context of smartphone app usage. In…
Access to privacy-sensitive information on Android is a growing concern in the mobile community. Albeit Google Play recently introduced some privacy guidelines, it is still an open problem to soundly verify whether apps actually comply with…
Producing secure software is challenging. The poor usability of security APIs makes this even harder. Many recommendations have been proposed to support developers by improving the usability of cryptography libraries and APIs; rooted in…
Over the past 15 years, researchers have identified an increasing number of security mechanisms that are so unusable that the intended users either circumvent them or give up on a service rather than suffer the security. With hindsight, the…
The number of Android smartphone and tablet users has experienced a rapid growth in the past few years and it raises users' awareness on the privacy and security of their mobile devices. The features of openness and extensibility make…