Smartphone security investigation based on Android platform

• Main Author: Zhang, Mingmin
• Other Authors: Zhang Wei
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Wireless communication systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49111
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Nowadays smartphones are playing active roles in people’s life. A smartphone is no longer a simple communication device, but more like a small Personal Computer. In the meantime, just like the PC platform, smartphones are under thread of viruses and malware applications. Focusing on Android’s security problem, this project is actually a research on how a malware attacks Android system, what Android does to avoid the attack and how third-party security software is protecting the system. In addition, this project also aims to improve the Android Operating System itself to tackle these attacks. Android security is a huge topic and currently there is not a standard solution. Many security experts and companies have been working hard to protect Android from malicious attacks. The Internet is full of discussions and reports, while there is still no specialized book on this topic. As a result, most of the information is collected from websites and security reports. Of this project, the software part is developed on the Linux platform including the Android source code study and Android application development. The third-party security software testing is conducted on a real phone. Based on the studies and experiments of the project, the improved mechanism in this project is proved to enhance Android’s permission model. And another finding is that most of the security applications are becoming mature on the Android platform, which means they can protect the system to some extent.