Grant: Alliance Grants

Mobile apps on the Android platform are used by billions of people. One requirement is to provide a secure experience for them. One way to ensure security is by analyzing the source code of the apps and the platform they execute on for security issues. Analyzing one without the other can cause issues since both data and control flow back and forth between them. We are going to use a combination of mining software repositories, machine learning, program slicing, frequent itemset mining, and call graph analysis among many different static analysis approaches to narrow down the potential security issues. At the end of the static analysis phase, we will have identified the type of vulnerability and wherein the source code of either the app and/or the platform the vulnerability is present. At this point, we will use model-based testing to see if that line(s) of code can be executed with an appropriate input. With such testing, we will not only be able to reduce the number of false positives, but also provide the developers with an appropriate test case where the vulnerability could be exploited. The final outcome of the project is to provide developers with the tools to make the end-user experience more secure.