NDLI: Covert Communication in Mobile Applications (T)

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Rubin, J. Gordon, M.I. Nguyen Nguyen Rinard, M.
Copyright Year	2015
Description	Author affiliation: Global InfoTek Inc., USA (Nguyen Nguyen) \|\| Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA, USA (Rubin, J.; Gordon, M.I.; Rinard, M.)
Abstract	This paper studies communication patterns in mobile applications. Our analysis shows that 63% of the external communication made by top-popular free Android applications from Google Play has no effect on the user-observable application functionality. To detect such covert communication in an efficient manner, we propose a highly precise and scalable static analysis technique: it achieves 93% precision and 61% recall compared to the empirically determined "ground truth", and runs in a matter of a few minutes. Furthermore, according to human evaluators, in 42 out of 47 cases, disabling connections deemed covert by our analysis leaves the delivered application experience either completely intact or with only insignificant interference. We conclude that our technique is effective for identifying and disabling covert communication. We then use it to investigate communication patterns in the 500 top-popular applications from Google Play.
Starting Page	647
Ending Page	657
File Size	290942
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF
e-ISBN	9781509000258
DOI	10.1109/ASE.2015.66
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2015-11-09
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Google Androids Humanoid robots Mobile applications Interference Servers Visualization application analysis communication mobile applications Android
Content Type	Text

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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