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DROIDFAX: A toolkit for systematic characterization of android applications

  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

As the Android app market keeps growing, there is a pressing need for automated tool supports to empower Android developers to produce quality apps with higher productivity. Yet existing tools for Android mostly aim at security and privacy protection, primarily targeting end users and security analysts. Towards filling this gap, we present DROIDFAX, a toolkit that targets the developers to help them comprehensively understand Android apps regarding their code structure and behavioral traits. To that end, DROIDFAX features a systematic app characterization in multiple dimensions and views, through lightweight code analysis and profiling of both ordinary method calls (including those via reflection and exceptional control flows) and inter-component communications (including those within and across apps). The toolkit also includes a statement coverage tracker that works directly on bytecode and a dedicated tracer of events occurred during app executions. Applying DROIDFAX in two use cases has resulted in important findings about app behavioral patterns and an advanced security defense technique for Android. Empirical results also showed promising efficiency and scalability of DROIDFAX for practical adoption. A demo video for DROIDFAX can be viewed here or downloaded here.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2017
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages643-647
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9781538609927
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2 2017
Event2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2017 - Shanghai, China
Duration: Sep 19 2017Sep 22 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2017

Conference

Conference2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution, ICSME 2017
Country/TerritoryChina
CityShanghai
Period09/19/1709/22/17

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