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\(\mathbb {K}\)-Smali: An Executable Semantics for Program Verification of Reversed Android Applications

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Foundations and Practice of Security (FPS 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13291))

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Abstract

One of the main weaknesses threatening smartphone security is the abysmal lack of tools and environments that allow formal verification of application actions, thus early detection of any malicious behavior, before irreversible damage is done. In this regard, formal methods appear to be the most natural and secure way for rigorous and unambiguous specification as well as for the verification of such applications. In previous work, we proposed a formal approach to build the operational semantics of a given Android application by reverse engineering its assembly code, which we called \(Smali^+\). In this paper, we rely on the same idea and we enhance it by using a language definitional framework. We choose \(\mathbb {K}\) framework to define Smali semantics. We briefly introduce the \(\mathbb {K}\) framework. Then, we present a formal \(\mathbb {K}\) semantics of Smali code, called \(\mathbb {K}\)-Smali. Semantics includes multi-threading, threads scheduling and synchronization. The proposed semantics supports linear temporal logic model-checking that provides a suitable and comprehensive formal environment for checking a wide range of Android security-related properties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Laval University, 2325, rue de l’Université, Québec City, QL, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Marwa Ziadia, Mohamed Mejri & Jaouhar Fattahi

Authors
  1. Marwa Ziadia
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  2. Mohamed Mejri
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  3. Jaouhar Fattahi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaouhar Fattahi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Esma Aïmeur

  2. Télécom SudParis, Palaiseau, France

    Maryline Laurent

  3. IRT SystemX, Palaiseau, France

    Reda Yaich

  4. University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Benoît Dupont

  5. Télécom SudParis, Palaiseau, France

    Joaquin Garcia-Alfaro

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Ziadia, M., Mejri, M., Fattahi, J. (2022). \(\mathbb {K}\)-Smali: An Executable Semantics for Program Verification of Reversed Android Applications. In: Aïmeur, E., Laurent, M., Yaich, R., Dupont, B., Garcia-Alfaro, J. (eds) Foundations and Practice of Security. FPS 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13291. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08147-7_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08147-7_22

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08147-7

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