Popular Operating System Research Articles

Malware detection techniques and tools for Android

Smartphone, with its powerful capabilities, has been wildly used in every area of our day-to-day life. The enormous kinds of applications installed in these smartphones like WhatsApp and Viber have changed the way people live and communicate. An estimate by Gartner indicates that 90% of the phones by the end of 2018 will be smartphones (MobileStorm, 2014). The most popular mobile operating system today in the industry is Android. However, with the prevalence of Android smartphone, malware authors have started to target it. Although mobile anti-malware solutions could be installed to scan malicious apps before they are made available for download, existing mobile anti-malware software relies exclusively upon a prior knowledge of malware samples in order to extract and deploy signatures for subsequent detection. Moreover, malware writers may update existing malware samples to dodge detection. Hence, this imprudent nature makes them inadequate in identifying new or mutated malware. This paper explores different techniques and tools available to analyse and detect Android malware. It also highlights the features and limitations of these techniques and tools.

GuidosToolbox: universal digital image object analysis

ABSTRACTThe increased availability of mapped environmental data calls for better tools to analyze the spatial characteristics and information contained in those maps. Publicly available, user-friendly and universal tools are needed to foster the interdisciplinary development and application of methodologies for the extraction of image object information properties contained in digital raster maps. That is the overarching goal of GuidosToolbox, which is a set of customized, thematically grouped raster image analysis methodologies provided in a graphical user interface and for all popular operating systems. The Toolbox contains a wide selection of dedicated algorithms and tools, which are complemented by batch-processing and pre- and post-processing routines, all designed to objectively describe and quantify various spatial properties of image objects in digital raster data. While first developed for the analysis of remote sensing data in environmental applications, the Toolbox now provides a generic framework that is applicable to image analysis at any scale and for any kind of digital raster data.

Forensic Investigation of Cooperative Storage Cloud Service: Symform as a Case Study.

Researchers envisioned Storage as a Service (StaaS) as an effective solution to the distributed management of digital data. Cooperative storage cloud forensic is relatively new and is an under-explored area of research. Using Symform as a case study, we seek to determine the data remnants from the use of cooperative cloud storage services. In particular, we consider both mobile devices and personal computers running various popular operating systems, namely Windows 8.1, Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.5, Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS, iOS 7.1.2, and Android KitKat 4.4.4. Potential artefacts recovered during the research include data relating to the installation and uninstallation of the cloud applications, log-in to and log-out from Symform account using the client application, file synchronization as well as their time stamp information. This research contributes to an in-depth understanding of the types of terrestrial artifacts that are likely to remain after the use of cooperative storage cloud on client devices.

An SDN-Assisted Framework for Optimal Deployment of MapReduce Functions in WSNs

In this paper, we propose a solution to support big data processing with MapReduce inside a wireless sensor network (WSN). The proposed framework provides a simple MapReduce interface, whose implementation can be dynamically loaded into the appropriate nodes. The execution of map and reduce functions inside the network is achieved by leveraging software defined networking principles and in particular by enhancing the SDN-WISE protocol on both the Controller and the sensor node sides. On the Controller side, the proposed framework introduces a functionality, which evaluates the optimal deployment of the processing functions in the network taking the typical WSN requirements into account and enforces it by instructing the flow tables to forward traffic from the mappers to the appropriate reducers. Then, on the node side, SDN-WISE is integrated with Contiki, a widely popular operating system for sensor nodes, which has the capability to load and execute new functions without service disruption, i.e., on the fly. The proposed framework is evaluated considering different network topologies and approaches about the data processing location.

An exploratory study for software change prediction in object-oriented systems using hybridized techniques

Variation in software requirements, technological upgrade and occurrence of defects necessitate change in software for its effective use. Early detection of those classes of a software which are prone to change is critical for software developers and project managers as it can aid in efficient resource allocation of limited resources. Moreover, change prone classes should be efficiently restructured and designed to prevent introduction of defects. Recently, use of search based techniques and their hybridized counter-parts have been advocated in the field of software engineering predictive modeling as these techniques help in identification of optimal solutions for a specific problem by testing the goodness of a number of possible solutions. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for change prediction using search-based techniques and hybridized techniques. Further, we address the following issues: (i) low repeatability of empirical studies, (ii) less use of statistical tests for comparing the effectiveness of models, and (iii) non-assessment of trade-off between runtime and predictive performance of various techniques. This paper presents an empirical validation of search-based techniques and their hybridized versions, which yields unbiased, accurate and repeatable results. The study analyzes and compares the predictive performance of five search-based, five hybridized techniques and four widely used machine learning techniques and a statistical technique for predicting change prone classes in six application packages of a popular operating system for mobile--Android. The results of the study advocate the use of hybridized techniques for developing models to identify change prone classes.

Google Android Operating System: A Review

Nowadays, as the developing of hardware for cellular phones is becoming much better, the performance index is significantly higher than the legitimate specifications of the software configuration. Features of Mobile phone's depends completely on software. As the Android operating system is getting considerably prominent, the application based around Android SDK appeals to much more attention. Because of technological advancement, mobile terminals have actually evolved into functionally sophisticated devices such as, for instance smart phones and tablets. The Android platform has grown to become one of the most popular operating system alongside millions of new users each and every year. In spite of many studies, no one have presented a comprehensive classification of this particular operating system. In this particular paper we present an impartial review of the Android OS. We summarize the platforms historical past which includes improvements associated with each and every release as well as the systems engineering and project structure. General Terms Google Android Mobile Operating System.

Windows Based Data Sets for Evaluation of Robustness of Host Based Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) to Zero-Day and Stealth Attacks

The Windows Operating System (OS) is the most popular desktop OS in the world, as it has the majority market share of both servers and personal computing necessities. However, as its default signature-based security measures are ineffectual for detecting zero-day and stealth attacks, it needs an intelligent Host-based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS). Unfortunately, a comprehensive data set that reflects the modern Windows OS’s normal and attack surfaces is not publicly available. To fill this gap, in this paper two open data sets generated by the cyber security department of the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) are introduced, namely: Australian Defence Force Academy Windows Data Set (ADFA-WD); and Australian Defence Force Academy Windows Data Set with a Stealth Attacks Addendum (ADFA-WD: SAA). Statistical analysis results based on these data sets show that, due to the low foot prints of modern attacks and high similarity of normal and attacked data, both these data sets are complex, and highly intelligent Host based Anomaly Detection Systems (HADS) design will be required.

Password Extraction via Reconstructed Wireless Mouse Trajectory

Logitech made the following statement in 2009: “Since the displacements of a mouse would not give any useful information to a hacker, the mouse reports are not encrypted.” In this paper, we prove the exact opposite is true—i.e., it is indeed possible to leak sensitive information such as passwords through the displacements of a Bluetooth mouse. Our results can be easily extended to other wireless mice using different radio links. We begin by presenting multiple ways to sniff unencrypted Bluetooth packets containing raw mouse movement data. We then show that such data may reveal text-based passwords entered by clicking on software keyboards. We propose two attacks, the prediction attack and replay attack, which can reconstruct the on-screen cursor trajectories from sniffed mouse movement data. Two inference strategies are used to discover passwords from cursor trajectories. We conducted a holistic study over all popular operating systems and analyzed how mouse acceleration algorithms and packet losses may affect the reconstruction results. Our real-world experiments demonstrate the severity of privacy leakage from unencrypted Bluetooth mice. We also discuss countermeasures to prevent privacy leakage from wireless mice. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first to demonstrate privacy leakage from raw mouse data.

Android OS: A Review

Due to the technological development, mobile terminals have evolved into functionally sophisticated devices such as smartphones and tablets. The Android platform has become one of the most popular operating system with millions of new users each year. Despite many studies, none have provided a comprehensive description of this operating system. In this paper we present a review of the Android OS. We describe the platforms history including improvements involved in each release as well as the systems architecture and project structure.

Об особенностях детерминированного воспроизведения при минимальном наборе устройств

The deterministic replay technique can be used for debugging, improving reliability and robustness, software development and incident investigation (including reverse engineering of malware). The paper describes the implementation of deterministic replay of IA-32 based boards in QEMU. Another implementation of this technique in QEMU had been previously published, but it uses a significantly different approach. Deterministic replay implementation details and features substantially depend on deterministic area - the part of virtual machine which execution is being replayed. For replay to be deterministic the implementation must ensure that (1) all information flows across deterministic area borders should be logged and then replayed, and (2) there is no non-determinism inside deterministic area. The proposed approach is called «Min VM» because it’s based on the minimal deterministic area while the former one should be called «Max VM» as it attempts to stretch deterministic area to cover whole virtual machine. The proposed approach shows the advantages of lower time overhead for logging phase and easier support (because it is much easier to ensure determinism of small deterministic area). On the other side the shortcoming is larger log size mostly because deterministic area doesn’t include hard disks so all data flows from disks are being logged. It makes the self-sufficient replay log: image of the original HDD is not needed to replay the execution. The implementation has been tested on popular operating systems: Windows XP, Windows 7 and GNU/Linux 3.12. The current implementation shows 6 - 42% slowdown depending on application code that exceeds previous approach slowdown (17 - 79%).

Android OS parameters measurement on S3C6410

Nowadays Android becomes more and more popular operating system. Mostly, it is installed on portable devices with support of communications and providing friendly user environment. This article focuses on overview this system from the point of view of programmer and showing other options which this OS can be used in. In this paper, it is also shown how to measure some system parameters from the point of view of real-time capabilities such a switching context time, interrupt latency time and time of work with memory. Thanks these parameters, the system capabilities can be imagined on target platform. It is discussed about soft and hard real-time capabilities of OS Android.

Comparative Analysis of Operating System of Different Smart Phones

Nowadays rapidly increasing technology is mobile phone technology in telecommunication sector. This mobile device technology has great effect on everyone’s life. This technology has reduced the burden of people in their daily life. To manage the rising demand for such mobile devices, numerous operating systems came in the market as a platform upon which modern application can be produced. As a result, numbers of platforms and essential depository describe these platforms; customers may or may not be aware of these platforms that are appropriate for their needs. In order to solve this issue, we examine the most famous mobile phone operating systems to decide which operating system is most suitable for developers, business applications as well as casual use. In this paper we make assessment on the popular operating systems of mobile devices available in the business market, and on behalf of such assessment we distinguish that operating system OS is much useful of its particular characteristics compared with other systems.

Design and Build of an Electrical Machines’ High Speed Measurement System at Low Cost

The principal objective of this paper is to demonstrate the capability of high speed measurement and acquisition equipment design and build in the laboratory at a very low cost. The presented architecture employees highly integrated market components eliminating thus the complexity of the hardware and software stack. The key element of the proposed system is a Hi-Speed USB to Serial/FIFO development module that is provided with full software and driver support for most popular operating systems. This module takes over every single task needed to get the data from the A/D to the user software gluelessly and transparently, solving this way the most difficult problem in data acquisition systems which is the fast and reliable communication with a host computer. Other ideas tested and included in this document offer Hall Effect measuring solutions using some excellent features and very low cost ICs widely available on the market today.

Penetration Testing and Network Auditing: Linux

Along with the evolution of Internet and its new emerging services, the quantity and impact of attacks have been continuously increasing. Currently, the technical capability to attack has tended to decrease. On the contrary, performances of hacking tools are evolving, growing, simple, comprehensive, and accessible to the public. In this work, network penetration testing and auditing of the Redhat operating system (OS) are highlighted as one of the most popular OS for Internet applications. Some types of attacks are from a different side and new attack method have been attempted, such as: scanning for reconnaissance, guessing the password, gaining privileged access, and flooding the victim machine to decrease availability. Some analyses in network auditing and forensic from victim server are also presented in this paper. Our proposed system aims confirmed as hackable or not and we expect for it to be used as a reference for practitioners to protect their systems from cyber-attacks.

Phishing for suitable targets in the Netherlands: routine activity theory and phishing victimization.

This article investigates phishing victims, especially the increased or decreased risk of victimization, using data from a cybercrime victim survey in the Netherlands (n=10,316). Routine activity theory provides the theoretical perspective. According to routine activity theory, several factors influence the risk of victimization. A multivariate analysis was conducted to assess which factors actually lead to increased risk of victimization. The model included background and financial data of victims, their Internet activities, and the degree to which they were "digitally accessible" to an offender. The analysis showed that personal background and financial characteristics play no role in phishing victimization. Among eight Internet activities, only "targeted browsing" led to increased risk. As for accessibility, using popular operating systems and web browsers does not lead to greater risk, while having up-to-date antivirus software as a technically capable guardian has no effect. The analysis showed no one, clearly defined group has an increased chance of becoming a victim. Target hardening may help, but opportunities for prevention campaigns aimed at a specific target group or dangerous online activities are limited. Therefore, situational crime prevention will have to come from a different angle. Banks could play the role of capable guardian.

Nipdroid: An Enhanced Detection Mechanism for Android IPC

As one of the most popular mobile operating system, Android has been troubled by privilege escalation attacks. This is because that the original Android ignores the inspection of transmitted data inintent. It only checks the permission ofintentto determine whether the Inter-Process Communication (IPC) could continue. We developed Nipdroid to solve the mentioned defect in Android IPC detection. Nipdroid is based on the technology of marking and tracking sensitive data. After the original Android detection, Nipdroid extracts the sensitive tags fromintent, and matches them with the permission lists of both communication apps, and then checks whether there is unreasonable data transmission in IPC. Experiments show that Nipdroid is effective on both preventing privilege escalation attacks and protecting user's sensitive data.

Software for minimalistic data management in large camera trap studies

The use of camera traps is now widespread and their importance in wildlife studies is well understood. Camera trap studies can produce millions of photographs and there is a need for a software to help manage photographs efficiently. In this paper, we describe a software system that was built to successfully manage a large behavioral camera trap study that produced more than a million photographs. We describe the software architecture and the design decisions that shaped the evolution of the program over the study's three year period. The software system has the ability to automatically extract metadata from images, and add customized metadata to the images in a standardized format. The software system can be installed as a standalone application on popular operating systems. It is minimalistic, scalable and extendable so that it can be used by small teams or individual researchers for a broad variety of camera trap studies.

AtomicJ: an open source software for analysis of force curves.

We present an open source Java application for analysis of force curves and images recorded with the Atomic Force Microscope. AtomicJ supports a wide range of contact mechanics models and implements procedures that reduce the influence of deviations from the contact model. It generates maps of mechanical properties, including maps of Young's modulus, adhesion force, and sample height. It can also calculate stacks, which reveal how sample's response to deformation changes with indentation depth. AtomicJ analyzes force curves concurrently on multiple threads, which allows for high speed of analysis. It runs on all popular operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Macintosh.

The looming XP disaster in industrial environments

April 2014 will see the end of lifecycle and end of support for Microsoft XP. With a third of PCs worldwide still using the popular operating system, what effect will this have on mission-critical industries ranging from nuclear to automotive?

Portable packet processing modules for OS kernels

During the last 15 years we have been involved in the design and development of some extremely popular pieces of open source software. Two of them, the dummynet network emulator and the netmap framework, are available as kernel components for popular operating systems, and are widely used in several research and commercial projects. In this article we briefly describe the internals of the two systems, discuss the challenges in building kernel components that run on multiple operating systems, and analyze the difficulties in developing and maintaining open source software as part of one?s academic activity.