On the Static Analysis of Hybrid Mobile Apps: A Report on the State of Apache Cordova Nation

By Achim D. Brucker and Michael Herzberg.

Developing mobile applications is a challenging business: developers need to support multiple platforms and, at the same time, need to cope with limited resources, as the revenue generated by an average app is rather small. This results in an increasing use of cross-platform development frameworks that allow developing an app once and offering it on multiple mobile platforms such as Android, iOS, or Windows.

Apache Cordova is a popular framework for developing multi-platform apps. Cordova combines HTML5 and JavaScript with native application code. Combining web and native technologies creates new security challenges as, e.g., an XSS attacker becomes more powerful.

In this paper, we present a novel approach for statically analysing the foreign language calls. We evaluate our approach by analysing the top Cordova apps from Google Play. Moreover, we report on the current state of the overall quality and security of Cordova apps.

Keywords:
Static Program Analysis, Static Application Security Testing, Android, Cordova, Hybrid Mobile Apps

Supplementary material:
[ Slides Implementation | Vulnerable Application  ]

Please cite this work as follows:
A. D. Brucker and M. Herzberg, “On the static analysis of hybrid mobile apps: A report on the state of apache cordova nation,” in International symposium on engineering secure software and systems (ESSoS), J. Caballero and E. Bodden, Eds. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2016, pp. 72–88. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-30806-7_5. Author copy: http://logicalhacking.com/publications/brucker.ea-cordova-security-2016/

BibTeX
@InCollection{ brucker.ea:cordova-security:2016,
  author          = {Achim D. Brucker and Michael Herzberg},
  booktitle       = {International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and
                     Systems (ESSoS)},
  language        = {USenglish},
  editor          = {Juan Caballero and Eric Bodden},
  publisher       = {Springer-Verlag },
  pages           = {72--88},
  address         = {Heidelberg },
  series          = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science },
  number          = {9639},
  title           = {On the Static Analysis of Hybrid Mobile Apps: A Report on the
                     State of Apache Cordova Nation},
  year            = {2016},
  isbn            = {978-3-642-11746-6},
  areas           = {security, software},
  doi             = {10.1007/978-3-319-30806-7_5},
  abstract        = {Developing mobile applications is a challenging business:
                     developers need to support multiple platforms and, at the same
                     time, need to cope with limited resources, as the revenue
                     generated by an average app is rather small. This results in
                     an increasing use of cross-platform development frameworks
                     that allow developing an app once and offering it on multiple
                     mobile platforms such as Android, iOS, or Windows.
                     
                     Apache Cordova is a popular framework for developing
                     multi-platform apps. Cordova combines HTML5 and JavaScript
                     with native application code. Combining web and native
                     technologies creates new security challenges as, e.g., an XSS
                     attacker becomes more powerful.
                     
                     In this paper, we present a novel approach for statically
                     analysing the foreign language calls. We evaluate our approach
                     by analysing the top Cordova apps from Google Play. Moreover,
                     we report on the current state of the overall quality and
                     security of Cordova apps.},
  keywords        = {Static Program Analysis, Static Application Security Testing,
                     Android, Cordova, Hybrid Mobile Apps},
  supplementary01 = {https://git.logicalhacking.com/DASCA/DASCA},
  supplabel01     = {Implementation},
  supplementary02 = {https://git.logicalhacking.com/DASCA/DVHMA},
  supplabel02     = {Vulnerable Application},
  note            = {Author copy: \url{http://logicalhacking.com/publications/brucker.ea-cordova-security-2016/}},
}