STUDY OF PRIVILEGE ESCALATION ATTACK ON ANDROID AND ITS COUNTERMEASURES
Rejo Rajan Mathew · 2012
Android is most commonly used platform for smartphones today which boasts of an advanced security model having MAC and sandboxing. These features allow developers and users to restrict the execution of an application to the privileges assigned. The exploitation of vulnerabilities of the program is confined within the privilege boundaries of an applications sandbox. Privilege escalation attacks have grown manifold as the use of android systems have increased. Different kinds of mechanisms have provided some sort of respite to the developers but the security feature handling by the developers has not helped much. In this paper we discuss the basics of the privilege escalation attack and the various techniques used to counter and prevent this problem.