Android provides third-party applications with an extensive API that includes access to phone hardware, settings, and user data. Access to privacy- and security-relevant parts of the API is controlled with an install-time application permission system. We study Android applications to determine whether Android developers follow least privilege with their permission requests. We built Stowaway, a tool that detects overprivilege in compiled Android applications. Stowaway determines the set of API calls that an application uses and then maps those API calls to permissions. We used automated testing tools on the Android API in order to to build the permission map that is necessary for detecting overprivilege. We apply Stowaway to a set of 940 applications and find that about one-third are overprivileged. We investigate the causes of overprivilege and find evidence that developers are trying to follow least privilege but sometimes fail due to insufficient API documentation.
Title
Android Permissions Demystified
Published
EECS Department, University of California, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, May 12, 2011
Full Collection Name
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Technical Reports
Other Identifiers
EECS-2011-48
Type
Text
Extent
13 p
Archive
The Engineering Library
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