Ransomware Attack Detection and Prevention for Android Devices

Abstract

Along with the rapid development in the field of science and innovation, the cell phone became an exceptionally amazing gadget. Nowadays, it is like the miniaturization of computers with many more additional facilities. The smartphone is an integral part of everyone’s life and supports to keep all kinds of information in the form of documents. People use the smartphone for bank transactions, online bookings, buying, etc. But smartphone end users are continuously susceptible due to an increase in malicious applications called malware. Ransomware is a malware which forestalls the communication of an authentic client with the gadget by continually requesting that the client pay a payoff to expel the ransomware. The second behavior of ransomware is to encrypt personal data and files and asks for a ransom to get a decryption key. This malware reaches the smartphone in the form of mobile apps. Therefore, whenever a new app is being installed, it is significant and important to assess its security hazard by examining the mentioned consents and metadata by the application during its installation lifetime. It is possible to collect the information about permissions asked by the installing app and calculate the risk factor depending on the nature of permissions. This work aims to detect malware at kernel, application, user, and package level for android smartphones. It is also referred to as multi-level malware detection. It detects misbehavior of android apps during its first-time installation and calculates security risk score at runtime. If a risk is observed, then it stops the installation and removes the susceptible application.