NCScope: Hardware-Assisted Analyzer for Native Code in Android AppsACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper
Fri 22 Jul 2022 17:20 - 17:40 at ISSTA 2 - Session 3-12: Android C
More and more Android apps implement their functionalities in native code, so does malware. Although various approaches have been designed to analyze the native code used by apps, they usually generate incomplete and biased results due to their limitations in obtaining and analyzing high-fidelity execution traces and memory data with low overheads. To fill the gap, in this paper, we propose and develop a novel hardware-assisted analyzer for native code in apps. We leverage ETM, a hardware feature of ARM platform, and eBPF, a kernel component of Android system, to collect real execution traces and relevant memory data of target apps, and design new methods to scrutinize native code according to the collected data. To show the unique capability of NCScope, we apply it to four applications that cannot be accomplished by existing tools, including systematic studies on self-protection and anti-analysis mechanisms implemented in native code of apps, analysis of memory corruption in native code, and identification of performance differences between functions in native code. The results uncover that only 26.8% of the analyzed financial apps implement self-protection methods in native code, implying that the security of financial apps is far from expected. Meanwhile, 78.3% of the malicious apps under analysis have anti-analysis behaviors, suggesting that NCScope is very useful to malware analysis. Moreover, NCScope can effectively detect bugs in native code and identify performance differences.
Fri 22 JulDisplayed time zone: Seoul change
03:00 - 03:40 | Session 1-14: Android ATechnical Papers at ISSTA 2 Chair(s): Christoph Csallner University of Texas at Arlington | ||
03:00 20mTalk | Detecting Resource Utilization Bugs Induced by Variant Lifecycles in Android Technical Papers Yifei Lu Nanjing University, Minxue Pan Nanjing University, Yu Pei Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Xuandong Li Nanjing University DOI | ||
03:20 20mTalk | NCScope: Hardware-Assisted Analyzer for Native Code in Android AppsACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Technical Papers Hao Zhou The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Shuohan Wu The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Xiapu Luo Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Ting Wang Pennsylvania State University, Yajin Zhou Zhejiang University, Chao Zhang Tsinghua University, Haipeng Cai Washington State University, USA DOI |
16:40 - 17:40 | |||
16:40 20mTalk | Automatically Detecting API-induced Compatibility Issues in Android Apps: A Comparative Analysis (Replicability Study) Technical Papers Pei Liu Monash University, Yanjie Zhao Monash University, Haipeng Cai Washington State University, USA, Mattia Fazzini University of Minnesota, John Grundy Monash University, Li Li Monash University DOI | ||
17:00 20mTalk | Detecting Resource Utilization Bugs Induced by Variant Lifecycles in Android Technical Papers Yifei Lu Nanjing University, Minxue Pan Nanjing University, Yu Pei Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Xuandong Li Nanjing University DOI | ||
17:20 20mTalk | NCScope: Hardware-Assisted Analyzer for Native Code in Android AppsACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Technical Papers Hao Zhou The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Shuohan Wu The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Xiapu Luo Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Ting Wang Pennsylvania State University, Yajin Zhou Zhejiang University, Chao Zhang Tsinghua University, Haipeng Cai Washington State University, USA DOI |