Goal-driven exploration for Android applications
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Lai, Duling
issued: 2020-07-31T07:00:00Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Master of Applied Science - MASc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: This thesis proposes a solution for automated goal-driven exploration of Android applications – a scenario in which a user, e.g., security auditor, needs to dynamically trigger the functionality of interest in an application, e.g., to check whether user-sensitive info is only sent to recognized third-party servers. As the auditor might need to check hundreds or even thousands of apps, manually exploring each app to trigger the desired behavior is too time-consuming to be feasible. Existing automated application exploration and testing techniques are of limited help in this scenario as well, as their goal is mostly to identify faults by systematically exploring different app paths, rather than swiftly navigating to the target functionality. The goal-driven application exploration approach proposed in this thesis, called GoalExplorer, automatically generates an executable test script that directly triggers the functionality of interest. The core idea behind GoalExplorer is to first statically model the application UI screens and transitions between these screens, producing a Screen Transition Graph (STG). Then, GoalExplorer uses the STG to guide the dynamic exploration of the application to the particular target of interest: an Android activity, API call, or a program statement. The results of our empirical evaluation on 93 benchmark applications and 95 most popular GooglePlay applications show that the STG is substantially more accurate than other Android UI models and that GoalExplorer is able to trigger a target functionality much faster than existing application exploration.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/71226
note: Goal-driven Exploration for Android ApplicationsbyDuling LaiB.A.Sc, Simon Fraser University, 2016A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENTOF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCEinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORALSTUDIES(Electrical and Computer Engineering)The University of British Columbia(Vancouver)July 2019© Duling Lai, 2019The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Facultyof Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled:GOAL-DRIVEN EXPLORATION FOR ANDROID APPLICATIONSsubmitted by DULING LAI in partial fulfillment of the requirementsforthe degree of MASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCEin ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERINGExamining Committee:JULIA RUBIN, ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERINGSupervisorKARTHIK PATTABIRAMAN, ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERINGSupervisory Committee MemberPHILIPPE KRUCHTEN, ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERINGSupervisory Committee MemberiiAbstractThis thesis proposes a solution for automated goal-driven exploration of Androidapplications – a scenario in which a user, e.g., security auditor, needs to dynamicallytrigger the functionality of interest in an application, e.g., to check whether user-sensitive info is only sent to recognized third-party servers. As the auditor mightneed to check hundreds or even thousands of apps, manually exploring each appto trigger the desired behavior is too time-consuming to be feasible. Existingautomated application exploration and testing techniques are of limited help in thisscenario as well, as their goal is mostly to identify faults by systematically exploringdifferent app paths, rather than swiftly navigating to the target functionality.The goal-driven application exploration approach proposed in this thesis, calledGOALEXPLORER, automatically generates an executable test script that directlytriggers the functionality of interest. The core idea behind GOALEXPLORER isto first statically model the application UI screens and transit…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2019-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0380310
language: eng
degree discipline: Electrical and Computer Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/71226