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Android's filesystem access control is a crucial aspect of its system integrity. It utilizes a combination of mandatory access controls, such as SELinux, and discretionary access controls, like Unix permissions, along with specialized…
Android is one of the leading operating systems for smart phones in terms of market share and usage. Unfortunately, it is also an appealing target for attackers to compromise its security through malicious applications. To tackle this…
The scheme of application (app) distribution systems involving incentivized third-party app vendors is a desirable option for the emerging edge computing systems. However, such a scheme also brings various security challenges as faced by…
A number of trusted execution environments (TEEs) have been proposed by both academia and industry. However, most of them require specific hardware or firmware changes and are bound to specific hardware vendors (such as Intel, AMD, ARM, and…
Fragmentation is a serious problem in the Android ecosystem. This problem is mainly caused by the fast evolution of the system itself and the various customizations independently maintained by different smartphone manufacturers. Many…
Data hosted in a cloud environment can be subject to attacks from a higher privileged adversary, such as a malicious or compromised cloud provider. To provide confidentiality and integrity even in the presence of such an adversary, a number…
Software testing is an important phase in the software development life-cycle because it helps in identifying bugs in a software system before it is shipped into the hand of its end users. There are numerous studies on how developers test…
The proper use of Android app permissions is crucial to the success and security of these apps. Users must agree to permission requests when installing or running their apps. Despite official Android platform documentation on proper…
Fairness is one of the socio-technical concerns that must be addressed in software systems. Considering the popularity of mobile software applications (apps) among a wide range of individuals worldwide, mobile apps with unfair behaviors and…
Powered by the rising popularity of deep learning techniques on smartphones, on-device deep learning models are being used in vital fields like finance, social media, and driving assistance. Because of the transparency of the Android…
Mobile apps exploit embedded sensors and wireless connectivity of a device to empower users with portable computations, context-aware communication, and enhanced interaction. Specifically, mobile health apps (mHealth apps for short) are…
The rapid integration of AI into education has prioritized capability over trustworthiness, creating significant risks. Real-world deployments reveal that even advanced models are insufficient without extensive architectural scaffolding to…
Using cloud-based applications comes with privacy implications, as the end-user looses control over their data. While encrypting all data on the client is possible, it largely reduces the usefulness of database management systems (DBMS)…
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…
Application markets provide a communication channel between app developers and their end-users in form of app reviews, which allow users to provide feedback about the apps. Although security and privacy in mobile apps are one of the biggest…
Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) have emerged as a cornerstone for securing sensitive computations by providing isolated enclaves protected from untrusted software. However, their security guarantees are undermined by vulnerabilities…
Mobile gaming applications (apps) have become increasingly pervasive, including a growing number of games designed for children. Despite their popularity, these apps often integrate complex analytics, advertising, and attribution…
Recent advances in Transformer models, e.g., large language models (LLMs), have brought tremendous breakthroughs in various artificial intelligence (AI) tasks, leading to their wide applications in many security-critical domains. Due to…
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…
While extremely valuable to achieve advanced functions, mobile phone sensors can be abused by attackers to implement malicious activities in Android apps, as experimentally demonstrated by many state-of-the-art studies. There is hence a…