Spyware Detection based upon Hybrid Approach in Android Smartphones

Abstract

Smart phones, which were once a luxury product has now become a household product. This transformation has been due to the vast amount of functionalities which a smart phone provides in just a single device. Smartphone OS, such as Android, is an Open Source mobile platform that enables us to install third party applications. Due to large amount of applications that are available on the app store, it becomes very difficult for a user to distinguish between a malware free and malware containing application. In this paper, we are proposing a hybrid approach for detection of spyware genre applications out of all the installed applications.

Spyware Detection in Android Using Hybridization of Description Analysis, Permission Mapping and Interface Analysis

“…Example are VIBRATE and SET WALLPAPER etc 5,6 Level-one (1) permissions are higher-risk permissions or dangerous-level. These permissions are shown on the screen at the time of application installation 5,6 Level-two (2) permissions or signature permissions are based upon the criteria of key certificate matching of two or more applications such permission are utilized by developers to share resources among one or more application where the key certificate pair matches 5,6 Level-three (3) permissions or signatureOrSystem permission can be allowed by the system to preinstalled applications, provided by the manufactures either directly on the mobile or via updates sent over the air 5,6 After receiving the requested lists of an application according to their level of permission, it depends upon user either they installs all application by allowing all requested permissions or denying all of the requested permissions by cancelling the installation of an application 9 . In this paper, the main focus is on security in android applications by introducing Hybrid approach in Android Permission System.…”

“…FrameLayout can be more effective when elements are unseen and shown programmatically. The attribute android:visibility is used to hide particular elements in the XML.The attribute android:visibility has three visibility values which are visible, invisible (not show, but even takes a space), and gone ( not show, and not space taken) 6 .…”

“…Analyzing the screenshot is not feasible as it involves Digital Image Processing which is computationally intensive. So, our main concentration is on analysis of description of the application because description is the first interface in user interaction that helps the end-user to understand about functionality of the application 6 .…”