Book Image

Android Application Security Essentials

By : Pragati Rai
Book Image

Android Application Security Essentials

By: Pragati Rai

Overview of this book

In today's techno-savvy world, more and more parts of our lives are going digital, and all this information is accessible anytime and anywhere using mobile devices. It is of the utmost importance that you understand and implement security in your apps that will reduce the likelihood of hazards that will wreck your users' experience. "Android Application Security Essentials" takes a deep look into Android security from kernel to the application level, with practical hands-on examples, illustrations, and everyday use cases. This book will show you how to overcome the challenge of getting the security of your applications right. "Android Application Security Essentials" will show you how to secure your Android applications and data. It will equip you with tricks and tips that will come in handy as you develop your applications.We will start by learning the overall security architecture of the Android stack. Securing components with permissions, defining security in a manifest file, cryptographic algorithms and protocols on the Android stack, secure storage, security focused testing, and protecting enterprise data on your device is then also discussed in detail. You will also learn how to be security-aware when integrating newer technologies like NFC and mobile payments into your Android applications. At the end of this book, you will understand Android security at the system level all the way to the nitty-gritty details of application security for securing your Android applications.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Android Application Security Essentials
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Cache


If an application needs to cache data, it is prudent to use a cache storage mechanism provided by the Android stack. Android stores cache files in the filesystem along with the application so that they are sandboxed with the application that created it. All cache files are created in the /data/data/<application-path>/cache/ directory. In case the system is running low on memory, these cache files are deleted first. Regular pruning of these files is necessary as they may grow big and eat up disk space.

The following code snippet first writes a string to the cache file and then reads the same string from the cache file. As you will notice, reading and writing is the same as any file input/output, only the location of the file is obtained using getCacheDir() to write a string.

//Write to the cache file
String myString = new String ("Hello World!");
File file = new File (getCacheDir(), "MyCacheFile");
FileOutputStream fOut = new FileOutputStream(file);
OutputStreamWriter osw = new...