Mobile apps often collect and share substantial amounts of data about their users. Despite privacy regulations such as the GDPR and increasingly restrictive permission systems, research continues to identify privacy violations and unclear data practices that may enable user tracking.
Another issue related to mobile applications is that, despite data being encrypted, a thorough network analysis sometimes allows for inferring information about the data transmitted, e.g., through metadata and message structures.
Assessing and improving the security and privacy practices and transparency of mobile applications therefore remains an important and ongoing challenge. To tackle the issues mentioned above, this thesis may include the following tasks:
- Develop a network analysis framework or tool for mobile apps
- Analyse both encrypted and plaintext traffic
- Analyse and evaluate selected apps regarding security and privacy
- Examine dark patterns and privacy violations
Both Android and iOS are of equal interest, and it is up to the student to choose the preferred platform.
The project is suitable for students particularly interested in network analysis, mobile-app security, and privacy.