Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.14722/ndss.2023.24693
Tianxi Ji, Erman Ayday, Emre Yilmaz, Ming Li, Pan Li
When sharing relational databases with other parties, in addition to providing high quality (utility) database to the recipients, a database owner also aims to have (i) privacy guarantees for the data entries and (ii) liability guarantees (via fingerprinting) in case of unauthorized redistribution. However, (i) and (ii) are orthogonal objectives, because when sharing a database with multiple recipients, privacy via data sanitization requires adding noise once (and sharing the same noisy version with all recipients), whereas liability via unique fingerprint insertion requires adding different noises to each shared copy to distinguish all recipients. Although achieving (i) and (ii) together is possible in a naïve way (e.g., either differentially-private database perturbation or synthesis followed by fingerprinting), this approach results in significant degradation in the utility of shared databases. In this paper, we achieve privacy and liability guarantees simultaneously by proposing a novel entry-level differentially-private (DP) fingerprinting mechanism for relational databases without causing large utility degradation. The proposed mechanism fulfills the privacy and liability requirements by leveraging the randomization nature of fingerprinting and transforming it into provable privacy guarantees. Specifically, we devise a bit-level random response scheme to achieve differential privacy guarantee for arbitrary data entries when sharing the entire database, and then, based on this, we develop an -entry-level DP fingerprinting mechanism. We theoretically analyze the connections between privacy, fingerprint robustness, and database utility by deriving closed form expressions. We also propose a sparse vector technique-based solution to control the cumulative privacy loss when fingerprinted copies of a database are shared with multiple recipients. We experimentally show that our mechanism achieves strong fingerprint robustness (e.g., the fingerprint cannot be compromised even if the malicious database recipient modifies/distorts more than half of the entries in its received fingerprinted copy), and higher database utility compared to various baseline methods (e.g., application-dependent database utility of the shared database achieved by the proposed mechanism is higher than that of the considered baselines).
{"title":"Privacy-Preserving Database Fingerprinting.","authors":"Tianxi Ji, Erman Ayday, Emre Yilmaz, Ming Li, Pan Li","doi":"10.14722/ndss.2023.24693","DOIUrl":"10.14722/ndss.2023.24693","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When sharing relational databases with other parties, in addition to providing high quality (utility) database to the recipients, a database owner also aims to have (i) privacy guarantees for the data entries and (ii) liability guarantees (via fingerprinting) in case of unauthorized redistribution. However, (i) and (ii) are orthogonal objectives, because when sharing a database with multiple recipients, privacy via data sanitization requires adding noise once (and sharing the same noisy version with all recipients), whereas liability via unique fingerprint insertion requires adding different noises to each shared copy to distinguish all recipients. Although achieving (i) and (ii) together is possible in a naïve way (e.g., either differentially-private database perturbation or synthesis followed by fingerprinting), this approach results in significant degradation in the utility of shared databases. In this paper, we achieve privacy and liability guarantees simultaneously by proposing a novel entry-level differentially-private (DP) fingerprinting mechanism for relational databases without causing large utility degradation. The proposed mechanism fulfills the privacy and liability requirements by leveraging the randomization nature of fingerprinting and transforming it into provable privacy guarantees. Specifically, we devise a bit-level random response scheme to achieve differential privacy guarantee for arbitrary data entries when sharing the entire database, and then, based on this, we develop an <math><mi>ϵ</mi></math>-entry-level DP fingerprinting mechanism. We theoretically analyze the connections between privacy, fingerprint robustness, and database utility by deriving closed form expressions. We also propose a sparse vector technique-based solution to control the cumulative privacy loss when fingerprinted copies of a database are shared with multiple recipients. We experimentally show that our mechanism achieves strong fingerprint robustness (e.g., the fingerprint cannot be compromised even if the malicious database recipient modifies/distorts more than half of the entries in its received fingerprinted copy), and higher database utility compared to various baseline methods (e.g., application-dependent database utility of the shared database achieved by the proposed mechanism is higher than that of the considered baselines).</p>","PeriodicalId":74253,"journal":{"name":"NDSS symposium","volume":"2023 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10238085/pdf/nihms-1902823.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9584068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-02-01DOI: 10.14722/NDSS.2014.23323
Martin Georgiev, S. Jana, Vitaly Shmatikov
Hybrid mobile applications (apps) combine the features of Web applications and "native" mobile apps. Like Web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. Like native apps, they have direct access to local device resources-file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Hybrid apps are typically developed using hybrid application frameworks such as PhoneGap. The purpose of the framework is twofold. First, it provides an embedded Web browser (for example, WebView on Android) that executes the app's Web code. Second, it supplies "bridges" that allow Web code to escape the browser and access local resources on the device. We analyze the software stack created by hybrid frameworks and demonstrate that it does not properly compose the access-control policies governing Web code and local code, respectively. Web code is governed by the same origin policy, whereas local code is governed by the access-control policy of the operating system (for example, user-granted permissions in Android). The bridges added by the framework to the browser have the same local access rights as the entire application, but are not correctly protected by the same origin policy. This opens the door to fracking attacks, which allow foreign-origin Web content included into a hybrid app (e.g., ads confined in iframes) to drill through the layers and directly access device resources. Fracking vulnerabilities are generic: they affect all hybrid frameworks, all embedded Web browsers, all bridge mechanisms, and all platforms on which these frameworks are deployed. We study the prevalence of fracking vulnerabilities in free Android apps based on the PhoneGap framework. Each vulnerability exposes sensitive local resources-the ability to read and write contacts list, local files, etc.-to dozens of potentially malicious Web domains. We also analyze the defenses deployed by hybrid frameworks to prevent resource access by foreign-origin Web content and explain why they are ineffectual. We then present NoFrak, a capability-based defense against fracking attacks. NoFrak is platform-independent, compatible with any framework and embedded browser, requires no changes to the code of the existing hybrid apps, and does not break their advertising-supported business model.
{"title":"Breaking and Fixing Origin-Based Access Control in Hybrid Web/Mobile Application Frameworks","authors":"Martin Georgiev, S. Jana, Vitaly Shmatikov","doi":"10.14722/NDSS.2014.23323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14722/NDSS.2014.23323","url":null,"abstract":"Hybrid mobile applications (apps) combine the features of Web applications and \"native\" mobile apps. Like Web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. Like native apps, they have direct access to local device resources-file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Hybrid apps are typically developed using hybrid application frameworks such as PhoneGap. The purpose of the framework is twofold. First, it provides an embedded Web browser (for example, WebView on Android) that executes the app's Web code. Second, it supplies \"bridges\" that allow Web code to escape the browser and access local resources on the device. We analyze the software stack created by hybrid frameworks and demonstrate that it does not properly compose the access-control policies governing Web code and local code, respectively. Web code is governed by the same origin policy, whereas local code is governed by the access-control policy of the operating system (for example, user-granted permissions in Android). The bridges added by the framework to the browser have the same local access rights as the entire application, but are not correctly protected by the same origin policy. This opens the door to fracking attacks, which allow foreign-origin Web content included into a hybrid app (e.g., ads confined in iframes) to drill through the layers and directly access device resources. Fracking vulnerabilities are generic: they affect all hybrid frameworks, all embedded Web browsers, all bridge mechanisms, and all platforms on which these frameworks are deployed. We study the prevalence of fracking vulnerabilities in free Android apps based on the PhoneGap framework. Each vulnerability exposes sensitive local resources-the ability to read and write contacts list, local files, etc.-to dozens of potentially malicious Web domains. We also analyze the defenses deployed by hybrid frameworks to prevent resource access by foreign-origin Web content and explain why they are ineffectual. We then present NoFrak, a capability-based defense against fracking attacks. NoFrak is platform-independent, compatible with any framework and embedded browser, requires no changes to the code of the existing hybrid apps, and does not break their advertising-supported business model.","PeriodicalId":74253,"journal":{"name":"NDSS symposium","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85553188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hybrid mobile applications (apps) combine the features of Web applications and "native" mobile apps. Like Web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. Like native apps, they have direct access to local device resources-file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Hybrid apps are typically developed using hybrid application frameworks such as PhoneGap. The purpose of the framework is twofold. First, it provides an embedded Web browser (for example, WebView on Android) that executes the app's Web code. Second, it supplies "bridges" that allow Web code to escape the browser and access local resources on the device. We analyze the software stack created by hybrid frameworks and demonstrate that it does not properly compose the access-control policies governing Web code and local code, respectively. Web code is governed by the same origin policy, whereas local code is governed by the access-control policy of the operating system (for example, user-granted permissions in Android). The bridges added by the framework to the browser have the same local access rights as the entire application, but are not correctly protected by the same origin policy. This opens the door to fracking attacks, which allow foreign-origin Web content included into a hybrid app (e.g., ads confined in iframes) to drill through the layers and directly access device resources. Fracking vulnerabilities are generic: they affect all hybrid frameworks, all embedded Web browsers, all bridge mechanisms, and all platforms on which these frameworks are deployed. We study the prevalence of fracking vulnerabilities in free Android apps based on the PhoneGap framework. Each vulnerability exposes sensitive local resources-the ability to read and write contacts list, local files, etc.-to dozens of potentially malicious Web domains. We also analyze the defenses deployed by hybrid frameworks to prevent resource access by foreign-origin Web content and explain why they are ineffectual. We then present NoFrak, a capability-based defense against fracking attacks. NoFrak is platform-independent, compatible with any framework and embedded browser, requires no changes to the code of the existing hybrid apps, and does not break their advertising-supported business model.
{"title":"Breaking and Fixing Origin-Based Access Control in Hybrid Web/Mobile Application Frameworks.","authors":"Martin Georgiev, Suman Jana, Vitaly Shmatikov","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hybrid mobile applications (apps) combine the features of Web applications and \"native\" mobile apps. Like Web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. Like native apps, they have direct access to local device resources-file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Hybrid apps are typically developed using hybrid application frameworks such as PhoneGap. The purpose of the framework is twofold. First, it provides an embedded Web browser (for example, WebView on Android) that executes the app's Web code. Second, it supplies \"bridges\" that allow Web code to escape the browser and access local resources on the device. We analyze the software stack created by hybrid frameworks and demonstrate that it does not properly compose the access-control policies governing Web code and local code, respectively. Web code is governed by the same origin policy, whereas local code is governed by the access-control policy of the operating system (for example, user-granted permissions in Android). The bridges added by the framework to the browser have the same local access rights as the entire application, but are not correctly protected by the same origin policy. This opens the door to <i>fracking</i> attacks, which allow foreign-origin Web content included into a hybrid app (e.g., ads confined in iframes) to drill through the layers and directly access device resources. Fracking vulnerabilities are generic: they affect all hybrid frameworks, all embedded Web browsers, all bridge mechanisms, and all platforms on which these frameworks are deployed. We study the prevalence of fracking vulnerabilities in free Android apps based on the PhoneGap framework. Each vulnerability exposes sensitive local resources-the ability to read and write contacts list, local files, etc.-to dozens of potentially malicious Web domains. We also analyze the defenses deployed by hybrid frameworks to prevent resource access by foreign-origin Web content and explain why they are ineffectual. We then present NoFrak, a capability-based defense against fracking attacks. NoFrak is platform-independent, compatible with any framework and embedded browser, requires no changes to the code of the existing hybrid apps, and does not break their advertising-supported business model.</p>","PeriodicalId":74253,"journal":{"name":"NDSS symposium","volume":"2014 ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4254737/pdf/nihms-612857.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"32889500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}