Secloud: A cloud-based comprehensive and lightweight security solution for smartphones

Saman Zonouz, Amir Houmansadra, Robin Berthiera, Nikita Borisova, William Sanders

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

As smartphones are becoming more complex and powerful to provide better functionalities, concerns are increasing regarding security threats against their users. Since smart-phones use a software architecture similar to PCs, they are vulnerable to the same classes of security risks. Unfortunately, smartphones are constrained by their limited resources that prevent the integration of advanced security monitoring solutions that work with traditional PCs. We propose Secloud, a cloud-based security solution for smartphone devices. Secloud emulates a registered smartphone device inside a designated cloud and keeps it synchronized by continuously passing the device inputs and network connections to the cloud. This allows Secloud to perform a resource-intensive security analysis on the emulated replica that would otherwise be infeasible to run on the device itself. We demonstrate the practical feasibility of Secloud through a prototype for Android devices and illustrate its resource effectiveness by comparing it with on-device solutions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)215-227
Number of pages13
JournalComputers and Security
Volume37
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Keywords

  • Cloud computing
  • Energy-aware security
  • Intrusion detection
  • Real-time intrusion response
  • Smartphone security

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Computer Science
  • Law

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