New Book Addresses Android Security Threat Landscape

Malware causes significant harm to individuals and enterprises by stealing sensitive data, disrupting business operations, damaging systems, and exposing confidential information.

Android, the world’s most popular operating system, is particularly vulnerable to malicious attacks because of its widespread use around the world. According to Zimperium’s 2023 Global Mobile Threat Report, the mobile security firm detected malware in one out of every 20 Android devices in 2022.

Northwestern Engineering’s V.S. Subrahmanian is a co-author of a new book called The Android Malware Handbook: Detection and Analysis by Human and Machine (No Starch Press Inc., 2023) that introduces the Android threat landscape and presents practical guidance to detect and analyze malware.

Designed for security professionals and engineers, the handbook reviews the history of Android malware since its launch 15 years ago, outlines static and dynamic approaches to analyzing malware specimens, and examines machine learning techniques for malicious application detection — strategies that can be adapted to the identification of malware categories including banking trojans, ransomware, and SMS fraud.

Along with Subrahmanian, The Android Malware Handbook co-authors include Qian Han and Sai Deep Tetali (Meta), Salvador Mandujano and Sebastian Porst (Google), and Yanhai Xiong (William & Mary).

Subrahmanian is a Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science in Northwestern Engineering and a faculty fellow at Northwestern Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.

He directs the Northwestern Security & Artificial Intelligence Lab (NSAIL), which is conducting fundamental research in AI relevant to issues of cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and international security. Subrahmanian and NSAIL researchers have led several projects related to Android security, greatly improving the classification and detection of Android malware.