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Android malware has been on the rise in recent years due to the increasing popularity of Android and the proliferation of third party application markets. Emerging Android malware families are increasingly adopting sophisticated detection…
The ability to identify the author responsible for a given software object is critical for many research studies and for enhancing software transparency and accountability. However, as opposed to other application markets like iOS,…
Smartphones contain a trove of sensitive personal data including our location, who we talk to, our habits, and our interests. Smartphone users trade access to this data by permitting apps to use it, and in return obtain functionality…
Various studies have empirically shown that the majority of Java and Android apps misuse cryptographic libraries, causing devastating breaches of data security. Therefore, it is crucial to detect such misuses early in the development…
In the age of ubiquitous technologies, security- and privacy-focused choices have turned out to be a significant concern for individuals and organizations. Risks of such pervasive technologies are extensive and often misaligned with user…
Third party tracking allows companies to identify users and track their behaviour across multiple digital services. This paper presents an empirical study of the prevalence of third-party trackers on 959,000 apps from the US and UK Google…
Mobile apps have become ubiquitous. For app developers, it is a key priority to ensure their apps' correctness and reliability. However, many apps still suffer from occasional to frequent crashes, weakening their competitive edge.…
Distinguishing AI-generated code from human-written code is becoming crucial for tasks such as authorship attribution, content tracking, and misuse detection. Based on this, N-gram-based watermarking schemes have emerged as prominent, which…
XML configuration files are widely used in Android to define an app's user interface and essential runtime information such as system permissions. As Android evolves, it might introduce functional changes in the configuration environment,…
Mobile applications, particularly those from social media platforms such as WeChat and TikTok, are evolving into "super apps" that offer a wide range of services such as instant messaging and media sharing, e-commerce, e-learning, and…
As mobile app usage continues to rise, so does the generation of extensive user interaction data, which includes actions such as swiping, zooming, or the time spent on a screen. Apps often collect a large amount of this data and claim to…
Android is the most widely used smartphone OS with 82.8% market share in 2015. It is therefore the most widely targeted system by malware authors. Researchers rely on dynamic analysis to extract malware behaviors and often use emulators to…
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…
[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 industry for children's apps is thriving at the cost of children's privacy: these apps routinely disclose children's data to multiple data trackers and ad networks. As children spend increasing time online, such exposure accumulates to…
Security of mobile apps affects the security of their users. This has fueled the development of techniques to automatically detect vulnerabilities in mobile apps and help developers secure their apps; specifically, in the context of Android…
Accurate detection of third-party libraries (TPLs) is fundamental to Android security, supporting vulnerability tracking, malware detection, and supply chain auditing. Despite many proposed tools, their real-world effectiveness remains…
Dynamic analysis has emerged as a pivotal technique for testing Android apps, enabling the detection of bugs, malicious code, and vulnerabilities. A key metric in evaluating the efficacy of tools employed by both research and practitioner…
Google's Android is a comprehensive software framework for mobile communication devices (i.e., smartphones, PDAs). The Android framework includes an operating system, middleware and a set of key applications. The incorporation of integrated…
With the rapid development of online technologies and the widespread usage of mobile phones among children, it is crucial to protect their online safety. Some studies reported that online abuse and incidents negatively affect children's…