A Software Environment for Confining Malicious Android Applications via Resource Virtualization

Abstract

In the Android system, applications (apps) execute on the same platform that manages all system resources, where resource accesses are regulated through a permission-based mechanism. As a result, malicious apps get chances to abuse resources that are available on the Android platform. In this paper, we propose resource virtualization as a security mechanism to confine resource-abusing Android apps. The physical resources on a mobile device are virtualized to a different virtual view for selected Android apps. Resource virtualization simulates a partial but consistent virtual view of the Android resources. Therefore, it can not only confine the resource-abusing apps effectively, but also ensure the usability of them. We implement a system prototype, RVDroid, and evaluate it with real-world apps of various types. Our results demonstrate its effectiveness on malicious Android apps and its compatibility and usability on benign ones.