Toward an Android Static Analysis Approach for Data Protection

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Khedkar, Mugdha, Bodden, Eric
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Khedkar, Mugdha
Bodden, Eric
author_facet Khedkar, Mugdha
Bodden, Eric
contents Android applications collecting data from users must protect it according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Since app developers are not legal experts, they find it difficult to write privacy-aware source code. Moreover, they have limited tool support to reason about data protection throughout their app development process. This paper motivates the need for a static analysis approach to diagnose and explain data protection in Android apps. The analysis will recognize personal data sources in the source code, and aims to further examine the data flow originating from these sources. App developers can then address key questions about data manipulation, derived data, and the presence of technical measures. Despite challenges, we explore to what extent one can realize this analysis through static taint analysis, a common method for identifying security vulnerabilities. This is a first step towards designing a tool-based approach that aids app developers and assessors in ensuring data protection in Android apps, based on automated static program analysis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_07889
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Toward an Android Static Analysis Approach for Data Protection
Khedkar, Mugdha
Bodden, Eric
Software Engineering
Cryptography and Security
Android applications collecting data from users must protect it according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Since app developers are not legal experts, they find it difficult to write privacy-aware source code. Moreover, they have limited tool support to reason about data protection throughout their app development process. This paper motivates the need for a static analysis approach to diagnose and explain data protection in Android apps. The analysis will recognize personal data sources in the source code, and aims to further examine the data flow originating from these sources. App developers can then address key questions about data manipulation, derived data, and the presence of technical measures. Despite challenges, we explore to what extent one can realize this analysis through static taint analysis, a common method for identifying security vulnerabilities. This is a first step towards designing a tool-based approach that aids app developers and assessors in ensuring data protection in Android apps, based on automated static program analysis.
title Toward an Android Static Analysis Approach for Data Protection
topic Software Engineering
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.07889