Related papers: Android OS Privacy Under the Loupe -- A Tale from …
There are over 1.2 million applications on the Google Play store today with a large number of competing applications for any given use or function. This creates challenges for users in selecting the right application. Moreover, some of the…
Several ICT studies give anecdotal evidences showing privacy to be an area of concern that can influence adoption of technology in the developing world. However, in-depth understanding of end users' privacy attitudes and awareness is…
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…
Location sharing applications are becoming increasingly common. These applications allow users to share their own locations and view contacts' current locations on a map. Location applications are commonly used by friends and family members…
Third-party libraries (TPLs) have been widely used in mobile apps, which play an essential part in the entire Android ecosystem. However, TPL is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can ease the development of mobile apps. On the other…
Contact tracing has historically been used to retard the spread of infectious diseases, but if it is exercised by hand in large-scale, it is known to be a resource-intensive and quite deficient process. Nowadays, digital contact tracing has…
User profiling, the practice of collecting user information for personalized recommendations, has become widespread, driving progress in technology. However, this growth poses a threat to user privacy, as devices often collect sensitive…
Smartphone apps usually have access to sensitive user data such as contacts, geo-location, and account credentials and they might share such data to external entities through the Internet or with other apps. Confidentiality of user data…
Smartphones, the devices we carry everywhere with us, are being heavily tracked and have undoubtedly become a major threat to our privacy. As "tracking the trackers" has become a necessity, various static and dynamic analysis tools have…
Mobile privacy and security can be a collaborative process where individuals seek advice and help from their trusted communities. To support such collective privacy and security management, we developed a mobile app for Community Oversight…
With the development of foundation AI technologies, task-executable voice assistants (VAs) have become more popular, enhancing user convenience and expanding device functionality. Android task-executable VAs are applications that are…
The advancements in the digitization world has revolutionized the automotive industry. Today's modern cars are equipped with internet, computers that can provide autonomous driving functionalities as well as infotainment systems that can…
The Google Play marketplace has introduced the Data Safety section to improve transparency regarding how mobile applications (apps) collect, share, and protect user data. This mechanism requires developers to disclose privacy and…
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…
Mobile phones have developed into complex platforms with large numbers of installed applications and a wide range of sensitive data. Application security policies limit the permissions of each installed application. As applications may…
Nowadays privacy in the connected world is a big user's concern. The ubiquity of mobile devices permits billions of users browse the web at anytime, anywhere. Near Field Communication (NFC) appeared as a seamlessly and simply communication…
Many Android applications collect data from users. When they do, they must protect this collected data according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the…
In this work we show that Tor is vulnerable to app deanonymization attacks on Android devices through network traffic analysis. For this purpose, we describe a general methodology for performing an attack that allows to deanonymize the apps…
Since the beginning of 2020, the novel coronavirus has begun to sweep across the globe. Given the prevalence of smartphones everywhere, many countries across continents also developed COVID-19 contract tracing apps that users can install to…
Android applications collecting data from users must protect it according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the General Data Protection Regulation…