Mobile SCALe: Rules and Analysis for Secure Java and Android Coding

This report describes Android secure coding rules, guidelines, and static analysis that were developed as part of the Mobile Source Code Analysis Laboratory (SCALe) project. The project aims to create a set of rules that can be checked (and potentially enforced) and to develop checkers for these rules. These efforts are intended to increase confidence in continued safe and secure operation of mobile devices and the networks on which they operate. The focus for this phase of the project is the Android platform for mobile devices. Work described in this report involved three activities: (1) preparing the Java Coding Guidelines book for publication, (2) developing Android secure coding rules for the Android section of the CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java wiki, and (3) developing software that does static analysis of a set of Android apps for data flows between them so that security leaks can be detected.

CMU/SEI-2013-TR-015