• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.19A no.4
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• pp.187-194
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• 2012

This paper proposes a string analysis based system for classifying Android Apps that may access so called harmful sites, and shows an experiment result for real Android apps on the market. The system first transforms Android App binary codes into Java byte codes, it performs string analysis to compute a set of strings at all program points, and it classifies the Android App as bad ones if the computed set contains URLs that are classified because the sites provide inappropriate contents. In the proposed approach, the system performs such a classification in the stage of distribution before installing and executing the Apps. Furthermore, the system is suitable for the automatic management of Android Apps in the market. The proposed system can be combined with the existing methods using DNS servers or monitoring modules to identify harmful Android apps better in different stages.