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Automated detection and repair of incompatible uses of runtime permissions in Android apps

  • University of Moratuwa
  • Washington State University Pullman

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

The runtime permission model of Android enhances security yet also constitutes a source of incompatibility issues that impedes the productivity of mobile developers. This paper presents a novel analysis that detects the incompatible permission uses in a given app and repairs them when found, hence automatically adapting the app to the runtime permission model. The key approach is to check and enforce the app's conformance to the runtime permission use protocol through static control flow analysis and bytecode transformation. We implemented our technique as an open-source tool, ARPDROID, and initially evaluated it on 20 incompatible and 3 compatible real-world apps, assisted by manual ground truth and verification. Our results show that ARPDROID achieved 100% detection accuracy, 90% repair success rate, and 91.3% overall adaptation success rate at an average time cost of about two minutes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2018 ACM/IEEE 5th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems, MOBILESoft 2018
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages67-71
Number of pages5
ISBN (Print)9781450357128
DOIs
StatePublished - May 27 2018
Event5th ACM/IEEE 5th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems, MOBILESoft 2018, collocated with the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2018 - Gothenburg, Sweden
Duration: May 27 2018May 28 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering
ISSN (Print)0270-5257

Conference

Conference5th ACM/IEEE 5th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems, MOBILESoft 2018, collocated with the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2018
Country/TerritorySweden
CityGothenburg
Period05/27/1805/28/18

Keywords

  • Android
  • detection
  • incompatibility
  • repair
  • runtime permission

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