GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps
Mobile phishing attacks, such as mimic mobile browser pages, masquerade as legitimate applications by leveraging repackaging or clone techniques, have caused varied yet significant security concerns. Consequently, detection techniques have been receiving increasing attention. However, many such dete...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/160302 |
| _version_ | 1811676935022968832 |
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| author | Chen, Sen Fan, Lingling Chen, Chunyang Xue, Minhui Liu, Yang Xu, Lihua |
| author2 | School of Computer Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | School of Computer Science and Engineering Chen, Sen Fan, Lingling Chen, Chunyang Xue, Minhui Liu, Yang Xu, Lihua |
| author_sort | Chen, Sen |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Mobile phishing attacks, such as mimic mobile browser pages, masquerade as legitimate applications by leveraging repackaging or clone techniques, have caused varied yet significant security concerns. Consequently, detection techniques have been receiving increasing attention. However, many such detection methods are not well tested and may therefore still be vulnerable to new types of phishing attacks. In this article, we propose a new attacking technique, named GUI-Squatting attack, which can generate phishing apps (phapps) automatically and effectively on the Android platform. Our method adopts image processing and deep learning algorithms, to enable powerful and large-scale attacks. We observe that a successful phishing attack requires two conditions, page confusion and logic deception during attacks synthesis. We directly optimize these two conditions to create a practical attack. Our experimental results reveal that existing phishing defenses are less effective against such emergent attacks and may, therefore, stimulate more efficient detection techniques. To further demonstrate that our generated phapps can not only bypass existing detection techniques, but also deceive real users, we conduct a human study and successfully steal users' login information. The human study also shows that different response messages (e.g., 'Crash' and 'Server failed') after pressing the login button mislead users to regard our phapps as functionality problems instead of security threats. Extensive experiments reveal that such newly proposed attacks still remain mostly undetected, and are worth further exploration. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:29:22Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/160302 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:29:22Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1603022022-07-19T02:42:57Z GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps Chen, Sen Fan, Lingling Chen, Chunyang Xue, Minhui Liu, Yang Xu, Lihua School of Computer Science and Engineering Engineering::Computer science and engineering Phishing Graphical User Interfaces Mobile phishing attacks, such as mimic mobile browser pages, masquerade as legitimate applications by leveraging repackaging or clone techniques, have caused varied yet significant security concerns. Consequently, detection techniques have been receiving increasing attention. However, many such detection methods are not well tested and may therefore still be vulnerable to new types of phishing attacks. In this article, we propose a new attacking technique, named GUI-Squatting attack, which can generate phishing apps (phapps) automatically and effectively on the Android platform. Our method adopts image processing and deep learning algorithms, to enable powerful and large-scale attacks. We observe that a successful phishing attack requires two conditions, page confusion and logic deception during attacks synthesis. We directly optimize these two conditions to create a practical attack. Our experimental results reveal that existing phishing defenses are less effective against such emergent attacks and may, therefore, stimulate more efficient detection techniques. To further demonstrate that our generated phapps can not only bypass existing detection techniques, but also deceive real users, we conduct a human study and successfully steal users' login information. The human study also shows that different response messages (e.g., 'Crash' and 'Server failed') after pressing the login button mislead users to regard our phapps as functionality problems instead of security threats. Extensive experiments reveal that such newly proposed attacks still remain mostly undetected, and are worth further exploration. National Research Foundation (NRF) This work is partially supported by National Satellite of Excellence in Trustworthy Software System (Award No. NRF2018NCR-NSOE003-0001) and the National Research Foundation, Prime Ministers Office, Singapore under its National Cybersecurity R&D Program (Award No. NRF2018NCR-NCR005-0001). Lihua Xu is supported in part by NSFC Grant 61502170, the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality Grants 18511103802. 2022-07-19T02:42:57Z 2022-07-19T02:42:57Z 2019 Journal Article Chen, S., Fan, L., Chen, C., Xue, M., Liu, Y. & Xu, L. (2019). GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps. IEEE Transactions On Dependable and Secure Computing, 18(6), 2551-2568. https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TDSC.2019.2956035 1545-5971 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/160302 10.1109/TDSC.2019.2956035 2-s2.0-85119497684 6 18 2551 2568 en NRF2018NCR-NSOE003-0001 NRF2018NCR-NCR005-0001 IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing © 2019 IEEE. All rights reserved. |
| spellingShingle | Engineering::Computer science and engineering Phishing Graphical User Interfaces Chen, Sen Fan, Lingling Chen, Chunyang Xue, Minhui Liu, Yang Xu, Lihua GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps |
| title | GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps |
| title_full | GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps |
| title_fullStr | GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps |
| title_full_unstemmed | GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps |
| title_short | GUI-Squatting attack: automated generation of Android phishing apps |
| title_sort | gui squatting attack automated generation of android phishing apps |
| topic | Engineering::Computer science and engineering Phishing Graphical User Interfaces |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/160302 |
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