A light-weight software environment for confining android malware

Xiaolei Li, Guangdong Bai, Benjamin Thian, Zhenkai Liang, Heng Yin

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly general-purpose, and therefore the physical boundary used to separate important resources disappears. As a result, malicious applications (apps) get chances to abuse resources that are available on the mobile platform. In this paper, we propose resource virtualization as a security mechanism for the Android system to strengthen the physical barrier between many types of resources and confine resource-abusing Android apps. The physical resources on a mobile device are virtualized to a different virtual view for selected Android apps. Resource virtualization simulates a partial but consistent virtual view of the Android resources. Therefore, it can not only confine the resource-abusing apps effectively, but also ensure the usability of these apps. We implement a system prototype, RVL, and evaluate it with real-world apps of various types. Our results demonstrate its effectiveness on malicious Android apps and its compatibility and usability on benign Android apps.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 8th International Conference on Software Security and Reliability - Companion, SERE-C 2014
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages158-167
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781479958436
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 17 2014
Event8th International Conference on Software Security and Reliability - Companion, SERE-C 2014 - San Francisco, United States
Duration: Jun 30 2014Jul 2 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings - 8th International Conference on Software Security and Reliability - Companion, SERE-C 2014

Other

Other8th International Conference on Software Security and Reliability - Companion, SERE-C 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Francisco
Period6/30/147/2/14

Keywords

  • Android malware
  • isolation
  • mobile security

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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