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Home » Towards Discovering and Understanding Task Hijacking in Android
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Towards Discovering and Understanding Task Hijacking in Android

Authors: 

Chuangang Ren, The Pennsylvania State University; Yulong Zhang, Hui Xue, and Tao Wei, FireEye, Inc.; Peng Liu, The Pennsylvania State University

Abstract: 

Android multitasking provides rich features to enhance user experience and offers great flexibility for app developers to promote app personalization. However, the security implication of Android multitasking remains under-investigated. With a systematic study of the complex tasks dynamics, we find design flaws of Android multitasking which make all recent versions of Android vulnerable to task hijacking attacks. We demonstrate proof-of-concept examples utilizing the task hijacking attack surface to implement UI spoofing, denialof- service and user monitoring attacks. Attackers may steal login credentials, implement ransomware and spy on user’s activities. We have collected and analyzed over 6.8 million apps from various Android markets. Our analysis shows that the task hijacking risk is prevalent. Since many apps depend on the current multitasking design, defeating task hijacking is not easy. We have notified the Android team about these issues and we discuss possible mitigation techniques in this paper.

Chuangang Ren, The Pennsylvania State University

Yulong Zhang, FireEye, Inc.

Hui Xue, FireEye, Inc.

Tao Wei, FireEye, Inc.

Peng Liu, The Pennsylvania State University

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {190943,
author = {Chuangang Ren and Yulong Zhang and Hui Xue and Tao Wei and Peng Liu},
title = {Towards Discovering and Understanding Task Hijacking in Android},
booktitle = {24th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 15)},
year = {2015},
isbn = {978-1-939133-11-3},
address = {Washington, D.C.},
pages = {945--959},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity15/technical-sessions/presentation/ren-chuangang},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug,
}
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