Smali+: An Operational Semantics for Low-Level Code Generated from Reverse Engineering Android Applications
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Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Laval University, Pavillon Adrien-Pouliot 1065, avenue de la Médecine, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
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Automatic Control, Computers and Electronics Department. Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, 100680 Ploiesti, Romania
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Information 2020, 11(3), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/info11030130
Received: 31 January 2020
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Revised: 25 February 2020
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Accepted: 26 February 2020
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Published: 27 February 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Topics in Systems Safety and Security)
Today, Android accounts for more than 80% of the global market share. Such a high rate makes Android applications an important topic that raises serious questions about its security, privacy, misbehavior and correctness. Application code analysis is obviously the most appropriate and natural means to address these issues. However, no analysis could be led with confidence in the absence of a solid formal foundation. In this paper, we propose a full-fledged formal approach to build the operational semantics of a given Android application by reverse-engineering its assembler-type code, called Smali. We call the new formal language Smali . Its semantics consist of two parts. The first one models a single-threaded program, in which a set of main instructions is presented. The second one presents the semantics of a multi-threaded program which is an important feature in Android that has been glossed over in the-state-of-the-art works. All multi-threading essentials such as scheduling, threads communication and synchronization are considered in these semantics. The resulting semantics, forming Smali , are intended to provide a formal basis for developing security enforcement, analysis and misbehaving detection techniques for Android applications.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Ziadia, M.; Fattahi, J.; Mejri, M.; Pricop, E. Smali+: An Operational Semantics for Low-Level Code Generated from Reverse Engineering Android Applications. Information 2020, 11, 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/info11030130
AMA Style
Ziadia M, Fattahi J, Mejri M, Pricop E. Smali+: An Operational Semantics for Low-Level Code Generated from Reverse Engineering Android Applications. Information. 2020; 11(3):130. https://doi.org/10.3390/info11030130
Chicago/Turabian StyleZiadia, Marwa, Jaouhar Fattahi, Mohamed Mejri, and Emil Pricop. 2020. "Smali+: An Operational Semantics for Low-Level Code Generated from Reverse Engineering Android Applications" Information 11, no. 3: 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/info11030130
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