Enhancing Cybersecurity by Defeating the Attack Lifecycle: Using Mobile Device Resource Usage Patterns to Detect Unauthentic Mobile Applications
Abstract:
Attacks are usually orchestrated based upon the motivation of the attackers, who are becoming increasingly savvy, better resourced, and more committed. This article examines cyber threats and vulnerabilities through the eyes of the perpetrator. To begin, the authors discuss some counter approaches that have produced limited benefits at best, and then introduce a novel approach that details the use of mobile device resource usage to discern unauthentic mobile applications from authentic applications. This capability is indeed a step in the right direction to addressing the problem of intrusion detection in mobile devices without using traditional signatures or rule-based approaches.
AUTHORS
Information Security Institute Johns Hopkins University
U.S.A.
Lanier Watkins is currently a Senior Professional Staff II member of the Asymmetric Operations Sector of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) and an Associate Research Scientist at the JHU Information Security Institute. Prior to joining APL, served as a senior engineer and product manager at the Ford Motor Company and AT&T.
National Defense University
USA
Dr. John S. Hurley serves as a Professor in the College of Information and Cyberspace at the National Defense University. Hurley has over 35 years’ experience in the area of information and computing technologies. He served as Senior Manager, Distributed Computing in the Networked Systems Division, for the Boeing Company, Bellevue, WA. Dr. Hurley was Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of three research centers (Scalable and Embedded Applications Center, Materials Processing Assessment and Characterization Center, and Avalon Scalable Embedded Computing Center) and the Co-Director, Army Center of Excellence in Electronic Sensors and Combat at Clark Atlanta University, in Atlanta, GA. He is a 2015 Seminar XXl Fellow.
Information Security Institute Johns Hopkins University
U.S.A.
Shuang Xie is a software engineer at Alpine Electronics Research of America, Inc. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Security Informatics from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China in 2012, and a master’s degree in Security Informatics from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, in 2014.
Information Security Institute Johns Hopkins University
U.S.A.
Tianning Yang is a security engineer at Nav Technologies, designing security schemes and protecting confidential data related to credit reports and personally identifiable information. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Information Security and an LLB in Law from Nankai University in 2012, and a master’s degree in Security Informatics from Johns Hopkins University in 2014.
Published In
Journal of Information Warfare
The definitive publication for the best and latest research and analysis on information warfare, information operations, and cyber crime. Available in traditional hard copy or online.
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