Android Malware Detection and Prevention Techniques - Literature review Example

Android, having more than one million apps has emerged as the leading mobile platform (Cozza et al. 2014). The markets for mobile apps, for instance, Android Google Play, have fundamentally transformed the manner in which consumers receive software, with daily updating and inclusion of many apps. The rapid expansions of the apps market coupled with the pervasive nature of apps provided on such platforms have paralleled the rise in the sophistication and number of security threats targeting mobile platforms.

Studies undertaken in the last few years indicate that mobile markets have vulnerable or malicious apps, thus compromising millions of gadgets. This case is common in Android markets, where several app cases afflicted with spyware and malware have been cited (Shabtai et al. 2010). Many culprits are responsible and some of them are not technical, for instance, the absence of a regulatory body in open markets along with the inconsequential implications to people providing apps with malicious potential or vulnerabilities.

The scenario is likely to increase because mobile applications are becoming ubiquitous and complex since mobile computing is in the infancy stages.Within the context, the security of Android has emerged as an interesting research topic in recent years, following its launch in 2008. Such research attempts have examined the security threats of Android from different viewpoints and are spread across different research communities, thus resulting in a literature body that cuts across different publication venues and domains.

A significant quantity of the reviewed literature is published within the software security and engineering domains. However, literature pertaining to the security of Android also runs parallel with those for analyzing programming language and mobile computing. Yet an extensive study, which links the knowledge and offers a thorough overview of existing state-of-the-art.