CMU Science of Security Lablet Research Initiative

Jonathan Aldrich, Anthony Tomasic

Abstract:

Mobile applications are a critical emerging segment of the software industry, and security for web-based mobile applications is of increasing concern.  We hypothesize that many of the most important security vulnerabilities in web-based mobile applications are a consequence of expressing programs at a low level of abstraction, in which important security properties are implicit and only indirectly related to code.  In order to test this hypothesis, we are building a system for expressing web-based mobile applications at a higher level of abstraction, in which security properties are made explicit through expressions of design intent, and in which those properties are more directly related to code.  We will evaluate whether such an approach can reduce or eliminate the most common vulnerabilities of web-based mobile software, while imposing a low or even negative marginal cost on developers.