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Mobile devices encroach on almost every part of our lives, including work and leisure, and contain a wealth of personal and sensitive information. It is, therefore, imperative that these devices uphold high security standards. A key aspect…
In this paper, we perform a comprehensive study of 2,470 patched Android vulnerabilities that we collect from different data sources such as Android security bulletins, CVEDetails, Qualcomm Code Aurora, AOSP Git repository, and Linux…
Vulnerabilities in Android smartphone chipsets have severe consequences, as recent real-world attacks have demonstrated that adversaries can leverage vulnerabilities to execute arbitrary code or exfiltrate confidential information. Despite…
The open-source nature of the Android OS makes it possible for manufacturers to ship custom versions of the OS along with a set of pre-installed apps, often for product differentiation. Some device vendors have recently come under scrutiny…
Many phone vendors use Android as their underlying OS, but often extend it to add new functionality and to make it compatible with their specific phones. When a new version of Android is released, phone vendors need to merge or re-apply…
Context: Post-release user feedback plays an integral role in improving software quality and informing new features. Given its growing importance, feedback concerning security enhancements is particularly noteworthy. In considering the…
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…
Android apps include third-party native libraries to increase performance and to reuse functionality. Native code is directly executed from apps through the Java Native Interface or the Android Native Development Kit. Android developers add…
The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is probably the most used and customized operating system for smartphones and IoT devices worldwide. Its market share and high adaptability makes Android an interesting operating system for many…
To satisfy varying customer needs, device vendors and OS providers often rely on the open-source nature of the Android OS and offer customized versions of the Android OS. When a new version of the Android OS is released, device vendors and…
Expecting the shipment of 1 billion Android devices in 2017, cyber criminals have naturally extended their vicious activities towards Google's mobile operating system. With an estimated number of 700 new Android applications released every…
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…
With the rapid growth of mobile apps, users' concerns about their privacy have become increasingly prominent. Android app logs serve as crucial computer resources, aiding developers in debugging and monitoring the status of Android apps,…
Android's open-source nature facilitates widespread smartphone accessibility, particularly in price-sensitive markets. System and vendor applications that come pre-installed on budget Android devices frequently operate with elevated…
Android devices are shipped in several flavors by more than 100 manufacturer partners, which extend the Android "vanilla" OS with new system services, and modify the existing ones. These proprietary extensions expose Android devices to…
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…
This paper analyzes the phenomenon of software aging - namely, the gradual performance degradation and resource exhaustion in the long run - in the Android OS. The study intends to highlight if, and to what extent, devices from different…
Firmware updates remain the primary line of defense for IoT devices; however, the update channel itself has become a well-established attack vector. Existing defenses mainly focus on securing monolithic firmware images, leaving module-level…
Privacy concerns have long been expressed around smart devices, and the concerns around Android apps have been studied by many past works. Over the past 10 years, we have crawled and scraped data for almost 1.9 million apps, and also stored…
Resource leak bugs in Android apps are pervasive and can cause serious performance degradation and system crashes. In recent years, several resource leak detection techniques have been proposed to assist Android developers in correctly…