X-Prcaf : Xposed Based Protecting Cache File from Leaks in Android Social Applications

Abstract

With the high frequent use of social applications on Android platform, the cache file privacy disclosure issues have become increasingly serious. To our best knowledge, there is no effective privacy protection solution for social applications cache files. In this paper, we analyze the present situation of social applications cache file leaks on Android platform, and provide a privacy disclosure assessment criterion based on file storage directories and security state machines. And a cache file privacy protection framework, X-Prcaf (Xposed-based-Protecting-Cache-File), is proposed, which can make social applications avoid privacy data leaks in running process. This framework mainly uses taint tracking technology, operating system hook technology, and cryptographic technology. It aims to protect the entire life cycle of the social applications cache files, by strategy pre-generation, real-time monitoring and security reinforcement. Experiments demonstrate that X-Prcaf has a good effect on the cache file leaks of social software.