A methodology for the security evaluation within third-party Android Marketplaces

Buchanan, William J.; Chiale, Simone; Macfarlane, Richard

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate possible threats with unofficial Android marketplaces, and geo localize the malware distribution over three main regions: China, Europe; and Russia. It provides a comprehensive review of existing academic literature about security in Android focusing especially on malware detection systems and existing malware databases. Through the implementation of a methodology for identification of malicious applications it has been collected data revealing a 5% of them as malicious in an overall analysis. Furthermore, the analysis shown that Russia and Europe have a preponderance of generic detections and adware, while Chine i found to be targeted mainly by riskware and malware.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 10, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Oct 13, 2017
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Deposit Date: Oct 19, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 14, 2018
• Journal: Digital Investigation
• Print ISSN: 1742-2876
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Pages: 88-98
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2017.10.002
• Keywords: malware analysis, APK, Android, marketplace
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/999323
• Contract Date: Oct 19, 2017