Book Image

Android Security Cookbook

Book Image

Android Security Cookbook

Overview of this book

Android Security Cookbook discusses many common vulnerabilities and security related shortcomings in Android applications and operating systems. The book breaks down and enumerates the processes used to exploit and remediate these vulnerabilities in the form of detailed recipes and walkthroughs. The book also teaches readers to use an Android Security Assessment Framework called Drozer and how to develop plugins to customize the framework. Other topics covered include how to reverse-engineer Android applications to find common vulnerabilities, and how to find common memory corruption vulnerabilities on ARM devices. In terms of application protection this book will show various hardening techniques to protect application components, the data stored, secure networking. In summary, Android Security Cookbook provides a practical analysis into many areas of Android application and operating system security and gives the reader the required skills to analyze the security of their Android devices.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Android Security Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Setting up device administration policies


First introduced in Android 2.2, the Device Admin policies grant abilities to apps to gain a greater level of device control. These features are primarily aimed at enterprise app developers given their controlling, restrictive, and potentially destructive nature, and offer an alternative to a third-party Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution. In general, this is not aimed at consumer apps unless a trust relationship already exists, for example, a bank and a banking app.

This recipe will define two device policies designed to strengthen the device that could be part of an enterprise's mobile security policy:

  • Enforce device encryption (which also ensures that a device pin/password is set)

  • Enforce maximum screen lock timeout

Although device encryption is no replacement for ensuring that the app data is encrypted properly, it does add to the overall device security. Reducing the maximum screen lock timeout helps protect the device if left unattended...