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

Application components


As we have briefly touched in Chapter 1, Android Security Model – the Big Picture, an Android application is a loosely bound stack of application components. Application components, manifest file, and application resources are packaged in an Application Package Format .apk file. An APK file is essentially a ZIP file formatted in JAR file format. The Android system only recognizes the APK format, so all packages have to be in the APK format to be installed on the Android device. An APK file is then signed with the developer's signature to assert the authorship. The PackageManager class handles the task of installing and uninstalling the application.

In this section, we will talk about the security of each of the components in detail. This includes the declaration of a component in the manifest file, so we prune loose ends and other security considerations that are unique to each component.

Activity

An Activity is the application component that usually interacts with the...