It’s been almost a full week since I started my research study for my internship. I’m researching the data flow of Android and it’s application. This is a completely new field of study to me, so when my mentor presented the topic to me I jumped at the chance to learn more. Since the week began, I’ve gained more insight into Android development and it’s quite complex which makes it all the more fascinating. I was given the task of reading several academic papers and I already finished 2 going on 3 tomorrow. I was somewhat slow moving at first, but I took professor Katie Seik’s advice and made myself a week/daily goal and time sheet to map out not only what I should be doing, but how, when, and map my progress. I used a time tracking website to help me manage my time and tasks, I absolutely love it! After I did this, completing my tasks didn’t seem so hard and draining. 

Articles I’ve been assigned to read:

*Articles Read

*FlowDroid: Precise Context, Flow, Field, Object-sensitive and Lifecycle-aware Taint Analysis for Android Apps 1500

*Automatically Securing Permission-Based Software by Reducing the Attack Surface: An Application to Android 679

Flow Permissions for Android 1800

On the Need of Precise Inter-App ICC Classification for Detecting Android Malware Collusions 2644

AppIntent: Analyzing Sensitive Data Transmission in Android for Privacy Leakage Detection 1750(96 hours)

Apposcopy: Semantics-Based Detection of Android Malware through Static Analysis 11215

Semantics-Aware Android Malware Classification Using Weighted Contextual API Dependency Graphs 

I’m also teaching myself Java and next Soot so I can learn to analyze Android and Android applications.  I hope I do well, and I’m actually looking forward to seeing my progress. Right after the weekend ;)!