Related papers: Silent Consent, Persistent Risk: Android Permissio…
Android apps collecting data from users must comply with legal frameworks to ensure data protection. This requirement has become even more important since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European…
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…
The transparency and privacy behavior of mobile browsers has remained widely unexplored by the research community. In fact, as opposed to regular Android apps, mobile browsers may present contradicting privacy behaviors. On the one end,…
The Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe, provides a de facto standard for requesting, recording, and managing user consent from European end-users. This framework has…
Like many desktop operating systems in the 1990s, Android is now in the process of including support for multi-user scenarios. Because these scenarios introduce new threats to the system, we should have an understanding of how well the…
In the fast-growing smart devices, Android is the most popular OS, and due to its attractive features, mobility, ease of use, these devices hold sensitive information such as personal data, browsing history, shopping history, financial…
Many Android applications collect data from users. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires vendors to faithfully disclose which data their apps collect. This task is complicated because many apps use…
Despite over 3.5 million Android apps and 200+ million Android Auto-compatible vehicles, only a few hundred apps support Android Auto due to platform-specific compliance requirements. Android Auto mandates service-based architectures in…
Android allows apps to communicate with its system services via system service helpers so that these apps can use various functions provided by the system services. Meanwhile, the system services rely on their service helpers to enforce…
End-users seldom read verbose privacy policies, leading app stores like Google Play to mandate simplified data safety declarations as a user-friendly alternative. However, these self-declared disclosures often contradict the full privacy…
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…
Android is a platform for mobile devices that captures more than 85% of the total market-share. Currently, mobile devices allow people to develop multiple tasks in different areas. Regrettably, the benefits of using mobile devices are…
The Android system manages access to sensitive APIs by permission enforcement. An application (app) must declare proper permissions before invoking specific Android APIs. However, there is no official documentation providing the complete…
Increasing interest in securing the Android ecosystem has spawned numerous efforts to assist app developers in building secure apps. These efforts have resulted in tools and techniques capable of detecting vulnerabilities (and malicious…
While mobile app evolution has been widely studied, geographical variation in app behavior remains largely unexplored. This paper presents a large-scale study of location-based Android app differentiation, uncovering two important and…
This work investigates how to monitor access to Android zero-permission sensors which could cause privacy leakage to users. Moreover, monitoring such sensitive access allows security researchers to characterize potential sensor abuse…
Therapy and life-coaching apps have been rapidly growing in number, flavors, and popularity. However, their users routinely share highly sensitive and personal information, such as traumas, fantasies, desires, relationship difficulties, and…
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…
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aims to ensure that all personal data processing activities are fair and transparent for the European Union (EU) citizens, regardless of whether these are carried out within the EU or anywhere…
Third-party tracking allows companies to collect users' behavioural data and track their activity across digital devices. This can put deep insights into users' private lives into the hands of strangers, and often happens without users'…