VM based Malware Security Protection on Android Platform

Abstract

This paper looks at the different ways in which Android phones can be attacked by android malware, and the different developments in malware protection and detection. The fight against mobile malware is an important one as most people today own cell phones and store valuable personal information on their phones. There are many ways in which a phone can be attacked by malware, and therefore there are many different methods to detect and defend against these attacks. Some experts suggest a decentralized data approach, while others suggest anti-malware hardware is the solution. There are many different Anti-malware hardware devices that all work in different ways and detect malware at different levels. However, there are no full-proof malware detection schemes. It is alarming that there is no common solution to protecting against malware and no way to completely detect malware every time. In this research, we focus on Android malware, specifically malware found on apps from the Google Play Store. One of the ways one would solve this problem is by using virtual machines and compiling malware detection programs on them. To support our VM based malware detection scheme, we develop an algorithm to provide implementation-level details. The practicality of our proposed scheme is shown using multiple case studies.