Protecting Android Apps from Repackaging Using Native Code

摘要

Android app repacking allows malicious actors to modify apps, bundle them with malware or steal revenue. Current detection mechanisms of app distribution services are questionable in their effectiveness, and other proposed repackaging protection schemes do not have the necessary protection against circumvention. We propose a repackaging protection architecture that verifies the app's integrity at runtime. We make use of encrypted sections of bytecode that can be decrypted with a key derived at runtime. The method partially relies on native code, and as such is difficult to circumvent. We show that our implementation provides a practical integration in the workflow of an app developer.