sis 20(28): e10

Research Article

Enhancing Security of Android Operating System Based Phones using Quantum Key Distribution

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  • @ARTICLE{10.4108/eai.13-7-2018.165281,
        author={Nageen Saleem and Areeba Rahman and Muhammad Rizwan and Shahid Naseem and Fahad Ahmad},
        title={Enhancing Security of Android Operating System Based Phones using Quantum Key Distribution},
        journal={EAI Endorsed Transactions on Scalable Information Systems},
        volume={7},
        number={28},
        publisher={EAI},
        journal_a={SIS},
        year={2020},
        month={6},
        keywords={Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), BB84 Protocol, Third-party applications, Encryption},
        doi={10.4108/eai.13-7-2018.165281}
    }
    
  • Nageen Saleem
    Areeba Rahman
    Muhammad Rizwan
    Shahid Naseem
    Fahad Ahmad
    Year: 2020
    Enhancing Security of Android Operating System Based Phones using Quantum Key Distribution
    SIS
    EAI
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.13-7-2018.165281
Nageen Saleem1, Areeba Rahman1, Muhammad Rizwan1, Shahid Naseem2, Fahad Ahmad1,*
  • 1: Department of Computer Sciences, Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan
  • 2: Department of Information Sciences, University of Education, Lahore, Pakistan
*Contact email: Fahad.ahmad@kinnaird.edu.pk

Abstract

The Android-based devices are gaining popularity now a day. With the widespread use of smartphones both in private and work-related areas, securing these devices has become of paramount importance. These devices are prone to various security issues of malicious attacks and performance problems. Owners use their smartphones to perform tasks ranging from everyday communication with friends and family to the management of banking accounts and accessing sensitive work-related data. These factors, combined with limitations in administrative device control through owners and securitycritical applications, make Android-based smartphones a very attractive target for attackers and malware authors of any kind and motivation. Applications keep and manage diverse intrinsic data as well as sensitive private information such as address books. Smartphones enable swift and easy data exchange via 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Thus, personal information stored on smartphones is prone to leakage. Up until recently, the Android Operating System’s security model has succeeded in preventing any significant attacks by malware. This can be attributed to a lack of attack vectors which could be used for self-spreading infections and low sophistication of malicious applications. The research provides a distinctive solution to the security threats being found in the Android operating system. This paper presents a data security and quality enhancement method based on amalgamating quantum attributes into the Android operating system that could effectively solve the issue raised. The paper provides a proposed architecture of Quantum Key distribution being embedded within the Android OS to improve efficiency. However, QKD is a new technology. The research unleashes the possible ways in which quantum could be effectively embedded in smartphones to resolve certain data security problems. Quantum key distribution implements the Android to guard and use in the case of a run-time kernel compromise. That is, even with a fully compromised kernel, an attacker cannot read key material stored in Quantum key.