A Systematic Study of Security Enforcement at Android Inter-Component Boundaries
Study finds 97 Android IPC enforcement gaps, including URI schemes handling sensitive data.
A study of Android inter-component enforcement on Android 17 (API 37) ran 120 evaluations across more than 30 Google and AOSP packages under a zero-permission attacker model. It found 97 enforcement gaps (80.8%) and 23 holds (19.2%); sampled Activities and BroadcastReceivers had a 100% gap rate, while ContentProviders held in 27.6% of cases. Eighteen custom URI schemes handled authentication tokens, payment credentials, or medical information, and all seven evaluated security-intent compatibility changes were disabled or gated beyond the corpus targetSdkVersion. The authors also report 23 positive controls used to calibrate the procedure.
- 120 checks spanned five IPC interface types on Android 17.
- Researchers recorded 97 gaps (80.8%) and 23 holds.
- Sampled Activities and BroadcastReceivers had a 100% gap rate.
- Eighteen custom URI schemes handled tokens, payments, or medical data.
- Seven security compatibility changes were disabled or SDK-gated.
From the original article
1 min read at arxiv.orgAndroid's inter-process communication (IPC) mechanisms (Activities, Services, BroadcastReceivers, ContentProviders, and URI scheme handlers) form the primary interface between applications and between applications and the system.
By Sandiyo Christan A · arxiv.org
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