Mobile Instant Messaging Apps: Usability Evaluation on iOS and Android Platforms and Recommendations for Developers

With the current growth in the use of smartphone devices, and the large amount of Mobile Instant Messaging applications available in the markets, this co-occurrence makes it highly valuable to evaluate the usability of this kind of applications in order to provide more satisfying user experiences. Within this paper, a systematic usability evaluation of Mobile Instant Messaging applications is presented, which will be applied to both iOS and Android platforms. Based on the results, it is suggested that this type of mobile applications present serious problems in performing tasks, poor user interfaces and lack of information about privacy and security features. Likewise, along with the results, this paper presents a list of usability recommendations to help developers improve their Instant Messaging applications

Preventing data leakage by securing chat session with randomized session ID

Messaging applications have become one of the largest and most popular smartphone applications. It includes the capacity for the users to communicate between themselves via text messages, photos and files. It is necessary to safeguard all messages. Privacy is one of the biggest issues which most individuals in the world of instant messaging ignore. Although several instant messaging applications offer varying security for users, the weaknesses and danger of data assault are increasing. Not just business discussions, our data must also be safeguarded during everyday discussions since data is very sensitive for everybody, and data protection is very crucial to prevent undesired loss of information. To address these types of weaknesses and hazards associated with data attacks, we require an encrypted messaging protocol and also hide IP address method for a safe interaction. This paper's goal is to protect conversations from targeted attacker by securing the communication between user and hide IP address from unauthorized access

How Smart is your Android Smartphone?

Smart phones are ubiquitous today. These phones generally have access to sensitive personal information and, consequently, they are a prime target for attackers. A virus or worm that spreads over the network to cell phone users could be particularly damaging. Due to a rising demand for secure mobile phones, manufacturers have increased their emphasis on mobile security. In this project, we address some security issues relevant to the current Android smartphone framework. Specifically, we demonstrate an exploit that targets the Android telephony service. In addition, as a defense against the loss of personal information, we provide a means to encrypt data stored on the external media card. While smartphones remain vulnerable to a variety of security threats, this encryption provides an additional level of security

Using Smartphone Technology to Enhance Self-Management Support in Adults with Type 2 Diabetes in Primary Care

Background: Self-care is a crucial component in the management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). The literature shows that frequent feedback on blood sugar recordings together with reminders can lead to improvements in patient’s glucose control and diabetic self-care. The Chronic Care Model developed by Wagner emphasizes the importance of patient participation in the management of their chronic diseases. Purpose: To explore the possibility of using smartphone technology to help adults with T2DM better manage this chronic disease in a primary care clinic in New England. Methods: A smartphone application (App) OnTrack Diabetes (OnTrack) and text messaging were used to enhance communication between the patient and the provider. After receiving facility and IRB waivers, participants were recruited and trained on the downloaded App. Data was generated through text messages, the App and DNP student journaling, which was evaluated for patient and provider satisfaction with the App. Results: This project lasted about five months with five out of the seven participants recruited actually completing the project. Many (60%) of the participants found the App useful, 80% followed through with the instructions in the text messages and 60% intend to continue to use the App. Three out of five providers liked the App and intend to continue to use it. Most (80%) of the participants noticed a decrease in blood sugar, hemoglobin A1C and weight. Conclusion: This project confirms that an App and text messaging may be a useful tool for primary care providers to enhance self management in patients with T2DM and that frequent communication with the patient in between face to face office visits keeps them engaged and more compliant with diabetes management

Forensic Analysis of the ChatSecure Instant Messaging Application on Android Smartphones

We present the forensic analysis of the artifacts generated on Android smartphones by ChatSecure, a secure Instant Messaging application that provides strong encryption for transmitted and locally-stored data to ensure the privacy of its users. We show that ChatSecure stores local copies of both exchanged messages and files into two distinct, AES-256 encrypted databases, and we devise a technique able to decrypt them when the secret passphrase, chosen by the user as the initial step of the encryption process, is known. Furthermore, we show how this passphrase can be identified and extracted from the volatile memory of the device, where it persists for the entire execution of ChatSecure after having been entered by the user, thus allowing one to carry out decryption even if the passphrase is not revealed by the user. Finally, we discuss how to analyze and correlate the data stored in the databases used by ChatSecure to identify the IM accounts used by the user and his/her buddies to communicate, as well as to reconstruct the chronology and contents of the messages and files that have been exchanged among them. For our study we devise and use an experimental methodology, based on the use of emulated devices, that provides a very high degree of reproducibility of the results, and we validate the results it yields against those obtained from real smartphones

An Empirical Study on Android for Saving Non-shared Data on Public Storage

With millions of apps that can be downloaded from official or third-party market, Android has become one of the most popular mobile platforms today. These apps help people in all kinds of ways and thus have access to lots of user's data that in general fall into three categories: sensitive data, data to be shared with other apps, and non-sensitive data not to be shared with others. For the first and second type of data, Android has provided very good storage models: an app's private sensitive data are saved to its private folder that can only be access by the app itself, and the data to be shared are saved to public storage (either the external SD card or the emulated SD card area on internal FLASH memory). But for the last type, i.e., an app's non-sensitive and non-shared data, there is a big problem in Android's current storage model which essentially encourages an app to save its non-sensitive data to shared public storage that can be accessed by other apps. At first glance, it seems no problem to do so, as those data are non-sensitive after all, but it implicitly assumes that app developers could correctly identify all sensitive data and prevent all possible information leakage from private-but-non-sensitive data. In this paper, we will demonstrate that this is an invalid assumption with a thorough survey on information leaks of those apps that had followed Android's recommended storage model for non-sensitive data. Our studies showed that highly sensitive information from billions of users can be easily hacked by exploiting the mentioned problematic storage model. Although our empirical studies are based on a limited set of apps, the identified problems are never isolated or accidental bugs of those apps being investigated. On the contrary, the problem is rooted from the vulnerable storage model recommended by Android. To mitigate the threat, we also propose a defense framework