Detección de vulnerabilidades de seguridad en bloqueadores de anuncios en dispositivos móviles Android.

Abstract

The proliferation of advertising in mobile device applications and the increasing number of adware led to the development of ad blocker applications. Its use produced better device performance, user experience and privacy. However, due to the benefits, relevant aspects were left aside, such as what information is collected and shared, what actions are taken to protect the information and what permissions are requested by the application. Agree with it, this project have as objective demonstrate that Android ad blocker applications present computer vulnerabilities and that, in the event of a possible exploitation of a vulnerability, all the information handled by the application may be compromised. To do this, a random sample of one hundred ad blocker applications was taken, which were analyzed with the VirusTotal tool and a manual review of the source code available with the Android Studio IDE. As a result, eight types of vulnerabilities were identified, substantiated by CVE records. Finally, a total of thirteen recommendations were raised, to make it difficult to exploit the vulnerabilities found. That is estimated to lead to a decrease in the possibility of exploiting vulnerabilities that affect ad blockers.