scholarly journals Using Provenance Patterns to Vet Sensitive Behaviors in Android Apps

2015 ◽  
pp. 58-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Yang ◽  
Guangliang Yang ◽  
Ashish Gehani ◽  
Vinod Yegneswaran ◽  
Dawood Tariq ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Android Apps

Tracing or Tracking? A Preliminary Analysis of COVID-19 Outbreak Tracker Apps on Android and User Privacy (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Akinbi ◽  
Ehizojie Ojie
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Phone Call ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
User Privacy ◽  
Android Apps ◽  
User Data

BACKGROUND Technology using digital contact tracing apps has the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19 outbreaks by recording proximity events between individuals and alerting people who have been exposed. However, there are concerns about the abuse of user privacy rights as such apps can be repurposed to collect private user data by service providers and governments who like to gather their citizens’ private data. OBJECTIVE The objective of our study was to conduct a preliminary analysis of 34 COVID-19 trackers Android apps used in 29 individual countries to track COVID-19 symptoms, cases, and provide public health information. METHODS We identified each app’s AndroidManifest.xml resource file and examined the dangerous permissions requested by each app. RESULTS The results in this study show 70.5% of the apps request access to user location data, 47% request access to phone activities including the phone number, cellular network information, and the status of any ongoing calls. 44% of the apps request access to read from external memory storage and 2.9% request permission to download files without notification. 17.6% of the apps initiate a phone call without giving the user option to confirm the call. CONCLUSIONS The contributions of this study include a description of these dangerous permissions requested by each app and its effects on user privacy. We discuss principles that must be adopted in the development of future tracking and contact tracing apps to preserve the privacy of users and show transparency which in turn will encourage user participation.

On the Relation between Code Elements and Accessibility Issues in Android Apps

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrique Neves da Silva ◽  
Andre Takeshi Endo ◽  
Marcelo Medeiros Eler ◽  
Silvia Regina Vergilio ◽  
Vinicius H. S. Durelli
Keyword(s):  
Android Apps ◽  
Accessibility Issues

scholarly journals Controlling Interactions with Libraries in Android Apps Through Runtime Enforcement

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliviero Riganelli ◽  
Daniela Micucci ◽  
Leonardo Mariani
Keyword(s):  
Runtime Enforcement ◽  
Android Apps

scholarly journals A3Ident: A Two-phased Approach to Identify the Leading Authors of Android Apps

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Guozhu Meng ◽  
Haoyu Wang ◽  
Kai Chen ◽  
Weimin Ge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Android Apps

scholarly journals A first look at Android applications in Google Play related to COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Samhi ◽  
Kevin Allix ◽  
Tegawendé F. Bissyandé ◽  
Jacques Klein
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Apps ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Location Tracking ◽  
Response Effort ◽  
Sensitive Data ◽  
Android Apps ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Public Health Organizations ◽  
Android Applications ◽  
Google Play

AbstractDue to the convenience of access-on-demand to information and business solutions, mobile apps have become an important asset in the digital world. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, app developers have joined the response effort in various ways by releasing apps that target different user bases (e.g., all citizens or journalists), offer different services (e.g., location tracking or diagnostic-aid), provide generic or specialized information, etc. While many apps have raised some concerns by spreading misinformation or even malware, the literature does not yet provide a clear landscape of the different apps that were developed. In this study, we focus on the Android ecosystem and investigate Covid-related Android apps. In a best-effort scenario, we attempt to systematically identify all relevant apps and study their characteristics with the objective to provide a first taxonomy of Covid-related apps, broadening the relevance beyond the implementation of contact tracing. Overall, our study yields a number of empirical insights that contribute to enlarge the knowledge on Covid-related apps: (1) Developer communities contributed rapidly to the COVID-19, with dedicated apps released as early as January 2020; (2) Covid-related apps deliver digital tools to users (e.g., health diaries), serve to broadcast information to users (e.g., spread statistics), and collect data from users (e.g., for tracing); (3) Covid-related apps are less complex than standard apps; (4) they generally do not seem to leak sensitive data; (5) in the majority of cases, Covid-related apps are released by entities with past experience on the market, mostly official government entities or public health organizations.

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