Accession Number:

ADA616946

Title:

Secure Ad Hoc Networking on an Android Platform

Descriptive Note:

Technical note

Corporate Author:

DEFENCE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ORGANISATION EDINBURGH (AUSTRALIA) CYBER AND ELECTRONIC WARFARE DIV

Personal Author(s):

• Morton, Angus
• Adie, David
• Montague, Paul

Report Date:

2014-05-01

Pagination or Media Count:

35.0

Abstract:

Android is a quickly maturing open source platform that is being widely adopted by individuals and by organisations including Defence. This document describes a proto- type implementation of a secure ad hoc networking system for Commercial Off The Shelf COTS Android platforms with a focus on extensibility and security. This implementa- tion utilises Near Field Communication NFC and Bluetooth to create secure, mutually authenticated ad hoc networks between devices for the sharing of information. The development work was conducted during a Swinburne University Industry-Based Learning IBL placement at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation DSTO, under the latters Industry Experience Placement IEP Program. One of the core issues surrounding Android involves the security of the operating system. Security-Enhanced Android SE Android aims to mitigate some of these issues by applying Mandatory Access Control MAC to Android. SE Androids MAC is currently applied to Android 4.4, however it is in permissive mode for most applications, and enforcing for root level applications only. In addition to the implicit protections provided by SE Android, we utilised SE Androids MAC to assist in securing our applications through the use of a global security policy. The policy restricts the permissions granted to our applications and other applications on the devices.

Descriptors:

• *INFORMATION SECURITY
• AUSTRALIA
• MOBILE COMPUTING
• SECURE COMMUNICATIONS

Subject Categories:

• Information Science

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE