Android Applications Scanning: The Guide

The booming of Android technology makes Android users and their devices with all running applications targeted by many security attackers. These attackers intent to inject malicious software in these applications to obtain the user's data for several purposes. Nowadays, Android users are keen to install clean apps in their devices. At the same time, security solutions have been proposed to detect malware apps. This paper presents a general framework for Android applications scanning process. The aim is to guide researchers and developers to the main phases/steps required to analyze Android applications, check their trustworthiness and protect Android users from being victims to serious malware attacks. Moreover, this research highlights the metrics, tools, mechanisms and datasets that are mostly used throughout the scanning process.