Hardware and Software Solution for Preserving Privacy of Mobile Devices and their Applications

Smartphones have become one of the basic necessities for everyday life. People spend a lot of their time on smartphones to browse the internet, chat, listen to music, play games, watch movies, and even do job related processing. One of the most important challenges and problems of smartphones is protecting the privacy of users. As we know, we now have billions of applications, many of which attract a large number of malicious applications that can monitor mobile phone users and discover a lot of their sensitive and confidential information. This research proposes a minor modification in the design of the software and hardware of smart phones, to ensure stronger protection for the user from any malicious application, even from the manufacturer of the device. The idea is based on building a physical lockout mechanism for some of the sensored devices, such as the camera and microphone, in addition to relaying alerts, and forcing user to accept requests before accessing any information. Acceptance of user requests is forced by overriding predefined permissions, which are usually difficult to track and manage. The research also provides an overview of a specialized platform which can easily assess the credibility of applications which exhibit strange behavior. We provide the details of the method, with simulation, for realising the suggested ideas into practice. We also discuss the benefits of the proposed improvements in the level of privacy and security, compared to the current situation.