Analyzing Use of High Privileges on Android: An Empirical Case Study of Screenshot and Screen Recording Applications

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Android apps, especially screenshot and screen recording apps, misuse high privileges, revealing security vulnerabilities and privilege leaks through empirical analysis of real-world applications.

Contribution

The study presents a novel approach and tools to detect privilege leakage in Android apps, demonstrating their effectiveness on popular applications and exposing security flaws.

Findings

Identified three privilege leaks in real-world Android apps

Successfully exploited ADB privilege in one app, confirming vulnerabilities

Provided recommendations for secure app development to prevent privilege leaks

Abstract

The number of Android smartphone and tablet users has experienced a rapid growth in the past few years and it raises users' awareness on the privacy and security of their mobile devices. The features of openness and extensibility make Android unique, attractive and competitive but meanwhile vulnerable to malicious attack. There are lots of users rooting their Android devices for some useful functions, which are not originally provided to developers and users, such as backup and taking screenshot. However, after observing the danger of rooting devices, the developers begin to look for other non-root alternatives to implement those functions. ADB workaround is one of the best known non-root alternatives to help app gain higher privilege on Android. It used to be considered as a secure practice until some cases of ADB privilege leakage have been found. In this project, we design an approach and implement a couple of tools to detect the privilege leakage in Android apps. We apply them to analyse three real-world apps with millions of users, and successfully identify three ADB privilege leaks from them. Moreover, we also conduct an exploitation of the ADB privilege in one app, and therefore we prove the existence of vulnerabilities in ADB workaround. Based on out study, we propose some suggestion to help developers create their apps that could not only satisfy users' needs but also protect users' privacy from similar attacks in future.