Mobile Code Anti-Reversing Scheme Based on Bytecode Trapping in ART

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Cybersecurity
• Mobile Computing

Background:

• The Internet of Things (IoT) necessitates secure mobile device integration for personalized services.
• Mobile platform security is paramount, as vulnerabilities can propagate throughout interconnected IoT environments.
• Android's transition from Dalvik virtual machine to Android Runtime (ART) alters application execution from bytecode to machine code.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the security implications of Android's runtime system change from Dalvik to ART.
• To investigate whether existing Dalvik-based application vulnerabilities are exploitable in the ART environment.
• To propose and evaluate a novel protection scheme for ART-based applications.

Main Methods:

• Demonstrating the exploitability of existing Dalvik vulnerabilities in ART due to coexisting Dalvik executables and one-to-one code mapping.
• Developing an ART-based application protection scheme that dynamically eliminates the one-to-one mapping between Dalvik bytecodes and compiled machine codes.
• Implementing the proposed scheme and conducting experiments to assess its reverse engineering resistance and performance impact.

Main Results:

• Existing Dalvik-based application vulnerabilities can be directly exploited in ART.
• The one-to-one mapping between Dalvik bytecodes and ART's compiled machine code facilitates vulnerability exploitation.
• The proposed protection scheme effectively eliminates this mapping, enhancing security.

Conclusions:

• The shift to ART does not inherently eliminate existing security risks from Dalvik-based vulnerabilities.
• A proactive security approach is required to address the new threat landscape introduced by ART.
• The developed ART-based protection scheme offers a viable solution for securing mobile applications against reverse engineering and vulnerability exploitation.