Marko Helenius received M.Sc. from University of Tampere in 1994 and Ph.D in 2002. His theses concentrated on computer antivirus research. Currently he is a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University of Technology. He is interested in information security research and teaching including university pedagogy. Currently he is active in national research programs including cloud software and internet of things.
Joona Kannisto is a researcher and a graduate student at the Department of Communications Engineering at Tampere University of Technology. His research interests include computer security and secure communication protocols, usable security, and reputation and trust management.
Android Security Software Needs More Privileges
Joona Kannisto1, Marko Helenius 2
- 1,2The Department of Communications Engineering Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 527, FI-33101, Tampere, Finland
- 1joona.kannisto@tut.fi
- 2marko.t.helenius@tut.fi
Abstract
We evaluated the usability and security of three anti-malware alerts in two production mobile security suites and one concept design. The effective security of the two production applications was discovered to be insufficient. The main cause was seen to be technical limitations imposed by the platform.
Currently the security user experience of third party security applications on Android is partly constrained by what the security applications are allowed to do. Most notably, they cannot remove malware automatically, which is a common practice in the desktop anti-malware products. Instead, security software has to persuade the user to remove malicious software. Moreover, the same mechanism can just as easily be used by malicious software. Therefore, a technological solution is needed to keep the good guys ahead.