Towards Android Application Protection via Kernel Extension.

As an integral part of Android system security, Android application protection has always been favored by researchers. The current popular protection schemes include the source code confusion, anti-debugging technology, and confusions of executable files. However, these schemes modify the applications more or less undoubtedly, and that causes inconvenience while these applications are running. This article proposes a kernel-level Android application protection scheme which can eliminate the need for additional application modifications and protect all application data. Therefore, we designed an encryption system and implemented a prototype system Godzilla on the basis of the Linux kernel 3.18.14 in order to verify the validity of the design. Experiments show that the system can achieve our goals well. Compared to non-protected applications, protected ones will have corresponding time loss during installation and startup, but they are all within acceptable limits.