ASF: Improving android security with layered structure instrumentation

Abstract

Due to the third-party applications that provide Smartphone users with functional extensions, more and more privacy leak events occur. While the existing security mechanism informs the user of the resources the application requires, it does not involve the usage of sensitive privacies. This paper presents Android Security Framework (ASF): a security framework for Android that guarantees the security of user privacy. In the framework layer, ASF is integrated for monitoring the operations that third-party applications perform on user privacies, and in the application layer, detectors inspect the safety of these operations based on ASF. Our security framework is implemented through layered structure, with minimal change to the existing Android code. A case study is presented as a preliminary validation of the security framework that helps users protect privacies. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.