Survey on Reverse-Engineering Tools for Android Mobile Devices

With the presence of the Internet and the frequent use of mobile devices to send several transactions that involve personal and sensitive information, it becomes of great importance to consider the security aspects of mobile devices. And with the increasing use of mobile applications that are utilized for several purposes such as healthcare or banking, those applications have become an easy and attractive target for attackers who want to get access to mobile devices and obtain users’ sensitive information. Developing a secure application is very important; otherwise, attackers can easily exploit vulnerabilities in mobile applications which lead to serious security issues such as information leakage or injecting applications with malicious programs to access user data. In this paper, we survey the literature on application security on mobile devices, specifically mobile devices running on the Android platform, and exhibit security threats in the Android system. In addition, we study many reverse-engineering tools that are utilized to exploit vulnerabilities in applications. We demonstrate several reverse-engineering tools in terms of methodology, security holes that can be exploited, and how to use these tools to help in developing more secure applications.

Reverse Engineering im Spannungsfeld der Sonderschutzrechte

In implementation of Directive (EU) 2016/943, Section 3 (1) No. 2 GeschGehG (German Trade Secrets Act) explicitly legalizes reverse engineering for the first time in the history of German trade secrets law. Subject of this thesis is a comprehensive exploration of this new freedom of reverse engineering. To this end, the author develops a definition of reverse engineering that takes into account the reality of economic life. After a practice-oriented interpretation of Section 3 (1) No. 2 GeschGehG, its effects on the entire legal protection of entrepreneurial know-how are examined. The focus is on the effects on copyright, patent and unfair competition law. In this context, the author develops goal-oriented solutions to various unanswered legal questions.