New Protection Mechanisms for New Attack Methods on Android(2/3)

This 3-year project proposes a system on Android to protect Android against a new attack approach, task hijacking, which is using by attackers to steal important information from smartphone users. This project also proposes a system to protect a smartphone from installing malicious App through a newly developed approach. After being installed in an Android smartphone, some malicious Apps try to hijack the control of the touch screen and touch keyboard of the smartphone so that the Apps can create a phishing screen to cheat the user and obtain his important information, such as password, account information, and dialogue content. Task hijacking is a new approach that attackers use to hijack the control of the touch screen and touch keyboard of a smartphone. In the front period of this project, we will develop a framework level protection mechanism for Android App developers to protect their Apps against task hijacking attacks. Instead of disallowing any activity to appear in the back stack of another App, the proposed solution allows App developers to decide whether an activity of other App can appear in the back stacks of their App. Hence, App developers can protect their Apps against task hijacking. Besides, unlike compromising a host or a server, smartphone attackers usually utilize social engineering to install malicious Apps into a smartphone. However, recently reports show that through the micro-USB connector of a smartphone, attackers can use adb to install malicious Apps into the smartphone. Through this approach, an attacker can disguise his device as a public smartphone charger to attract victims to connect to it and install malicious Apps on smartphones connected to it. The rear period of this project plans to propose and implement a framework and kernel-level solution on Android to block unauthorized installations of Apps through adb.