In this lecture, we will talk about Android security structure and explaining Android security structure
is a bit longer.
So I have divided this ledger into three parts and this is part one.
So let's start.
Google actually input security features and work with developers and device implementers to keep the
Android platform and the ecosystem in a safe environment.
And again, it's not so much only about the actual Android platforms or your mobile device or your tablet
or your refrigerator or whatever.
The case is actually running Android.
But also as far as actually ecosystem.
Right.
How you are connecting to the app stores, how you interact with apps and so on.
Now, the beauty is that Android is designed to be open and one of the challenges is that it has a little
less control when compared to the other alternatives like Apple US.
Now Google tries to maintain the Android platform to offer an application environment to help protect
the confidentiality, integrity and availability of users and also of the data and the applications
and the actual device itself and of course, the ecosystem as well.
Now, both Apple and Google have dedicated a lot of resources to make their mobile operating systems
fairly secure.
Some of the main challenges in security is whenever users through their device, rather, or jailbreaking
the devices and leaving them open to either malware or compromised applications.
OK, now the Android platform building blocks are, of course, the device hardware.
Right, that runs on the terms of hardware.
So that includes your smartphone, your tablet, your smartwatches, cars, smart device, gaming systems,
etc..
A lot of things actually run Android nowadays.
Now, the other beauty is that Android is process or agnostic.
Right.
But it does take advantage of some of the hardware specific security capabilities, especially in the
architecture.
OK, and there's actually a security capability called execute never right there prevents the remote
execution or arbitrary execution of any type of buffer overflow perhaps that actually can be exploited
in the system.
Now, the Android operating system is the core operating system and it's actually built on top of the
Linux kernel.
So it's all based on Linux, on the device resources like the camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS telephony
functions, the network connectivity, etc. are accessed via the operating system itself.
OK, now you also have the Android application runtime, Android applications side actually most often
written in Java programming language, and they actually run in the Android run thing.
Right.
And there are for this as the A.R.T., however, many applications, including the core Android services
and other applications, are actually native applications or include native libraries within the operating
system itself.
Now the Android applications extend the code Android operating system, and there are two primary sources
for these applications.
OK, so the first is preinstalled applications that come with your device.
And second is the user to install applications via the Google Play or any other stores that can be accessed,
mostly if you use the device.
And that leads to the problem with security, as I mentioned before.