A Systematic Deconstruction of Human-Centric Privacy & Security Threats on Mobile Phones

Abstract

Mobile phones are most likely the subject of targeted attacks, such as software exploits. The resources needed to carry out such attacks are becoming increasingly available and, hence, easily executable, putting users’ privacy at risk. We conducted a systematic literature analysis to understand the relationship between resources and attack feasibility and present a categorisation of social engineering and side-channel attacks on mobile phones focusing on the resources attackers require. Our proposed categorisation levels facilitate an in-depth understanding of how mobile phone attacks can be executed using different combinations of partly simple resources. The analysis reveals that discrete protection mechanisms are insufficient to provide all-inclusive protection. The proposed categorisation assists in building novel solutions for safeguarding users’ privacy from diverse attacks by carefully considering the potential misuse of resources. We conclude by outlining future research directions highlighting the urgent need for a holistic user defense.