Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study

Guosheng Xu; Yangyu Hu; Qian Guo; Ren He; Li Li; Guoai Xu; Zhihui Han; Haoyu Wang

doi:10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study

Guosheng Xu, Yangyu Hu, Qian Guo, Ren He, Li Li, Guoai Xu, Zhihui Han, Haoyu Wang

Department of Software Systems & Cybersecurity

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Mobile advertising has become the most popular monetizing way in the Android app ecosystem. Offerwall, as a new form of mobile ads, has been widely adopted by apps, and a number of ad networks have provided such services. Although new to the ecosystem, offerwall ads have been criticized for being aggressive, and the contents disseminated are prone to security issues. However, to date, our community has not proposed any studies to dissect such issues related to offerwall ads. To this end, we present the first work to fill this gap. Specifically, we first develop a robust approach to identify apps that have embedded with offerwall ads. Then, we apply the tool to 10K apps and experimentally discover 312 offerwall apps. We go one step further to characterize them from several aspects, including security issues. Our observation reveals that offerwall ads could indeed be manipulated by hackers to fulfill malicious purposes.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020
Editors	Christof Budnik, Mei Nagappan, W.K. Chan
Place of Publication	Piscataway NJ USA
Publisher	IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Pages	518-526
Number of pages	9
ISBN (Electronic)	9781728189130
ISBN (Print)	9781728189147
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072
Publication status	Published - Dec 2020
Event	IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security 2020 - Virtual, Macau, China Duration: 11 Dec 2020 → 14 Dec 2020 Conference number: 20th https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/9282732/proceeding (Proceedings) https://qrs20.techconf.org/ (Website)

Conference

Conference	IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security 2020
Abbreviated title	QRS 2020
Country/Territory	China
City	Macau
Period	11/12/20 → 14/12/20
Internet address	https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/9282732/proceeding (Proceedings) https://qrs20.techconf.org/ (Website)

Keywords

Android
Malware
Mobile Advertising
Offerwall
Pay-per Install

Access to Document

10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

Cite this

Xu, G., Hu, Y., Guo, Q., He, R., Li, L., Xu, G., Han, Z., & Wang, H. (2020). Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study. In C. Budnik, M. Nagappan, & W. K. Chan (Eds.), Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020 (pp. 518-526). IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

Xu, Guosheng ; Hu, Yangyu ; Guo, Qian et al. / Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements : an explorative study. Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020. editor / Christof Budnik ; Mei Nagappan ; W.K. Chan. Piscataway NJ USA : IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2020. pp. 518-526

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title = "Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study",

abstract = "Mobile advertising has become the most popular monetizing way in the Android app ecosystem. Offerwall, as a new form of mobile ads, has been widely adopted by apps, and a number of ad networks have provided such services. Although new to the ecosystem, offerwall ads have been criticized for being aggressive, and the contents disseminated are prone to security issues. However, to date, our community has not proposed any studies to dissect such issues related to offerwall ads. To this end, we present the first work to fill this gap. Specifically, we first develop a robust approach to identify apps that have embedded with offerwall ads. Then, we apply the tool to 10K apps and experimentally discover 312 offerwall apps. We go one step further to characterize them from several aspects, including security issues. Our observation reveals that offerwall ads could indeed be manipulated by hackers to fulfill malicious purposes.",

keywords = "Android, Malware, Mobile Advertising, Offerwall, Pay-per Install",

author = "Guosheng Xu and Yangyu Hu and Qian Guo and Ren He and Li Li and Guoai Xu and Zhihui Han and Haoyu Wang",

year = "2020",

month = dec,

doi = "10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072",

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booktitle = "Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020",

publisher = "IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers",

address = "United States of America",

note = "IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security 2020, QRS 2020 ; Conference date: 11-12-2020 Through 14-12-2020",

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Xu, G, Hu, Y, Guo, Q, He, R, Li, L, Xu, G, Han, Z & Wang, H 2020, Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study. in C Budnik, M Nagappan & WK Chan (eds), Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020. IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Piscataway NJ USA, pp. 518-526, IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security 2020, Macau, China, 11/12/20. https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study. / Xu, Guosheng; Hu, Yangyu; Guo, Qian et al.
Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020. ed. / Christof Budnik; Mei Nagappan; W.K. Chan. Piscataway NJ USA: IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2020. p. 518-526.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research

TY - GEN

T1 - Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements

T2 - IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security 2020

AU - Xu, Guosheng

AU - Hu, Yangyu

AU - Guo, Qian

AU - He, Ren

AU - Li, Li

AU - Xu, Guoai

AU - Han, Zhihui

AU - Wang, Haoyu

N1 - Conference code: 20th

PY - 2020/12

Y1 - 2020/12

N2 - Mobile advertising has become the most popular monetizing way in the Android app ecosystem. Offerwall, as a new form of mobile ads, has been widely adopted by apps, and a number of ad networks have provided such services. Although new to the ecosystem, offerwall ads have been criticized for being aggressive, and the contents disseminated are prone to security issues. However, to date, our community has not proposed any studies to dissect such issues related to offerwall ads. To this end, we present the first work to fill this gap. Specifically, we first develop a robust approach to identify apps that have embedded with offerwall ads. Then, we apply the tool to 10K apps and experimentally discover 312 offerwall apps. We go one step further to characterize them from several aspects, including security issues. Our observation reveals that offerwall ads could indeed be manipulated by hackers to fulfill malicious purposes.

AB - Mobile advertising has become the most popular monetizing way in the Android app ecosystem. Offerwall, as a new form of mobile ads, has been widely adopted by apps, and a number of ad networks have provided such services. Although new to the ecosystem, offerwall ads have been criticized for being aggressive, and the contents disseminated are prone to security issues. However, to date, our community has not proposed any studies to dissect such issues related to offerwall ads. To this end, we present the first work to fill this gap. Specifically, we first develop a robust approach to identify apps that have embedded with offerwall ads. Then, we apply the tool to 10K apps and experimentally discover 312 offerwall apps. We go one step further to characterize them from several aspects, including security issues. Our observation reveals that offerwall ads could indeed be manipulated by hackers to fulfill malicious purposes.

KW - Android

KW - Malware

KW - Mobile Advertising

KW - Offerwall

KW - Pay-per Install

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85099307235

U2 - 10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

DO - 10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

M3 - Conference Paper

AN - SCOPUS:85099307235

SN - 9781728189147

SP - 518

EP - 526

BT - Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020

A2 - Budnik, Christof

A2 - Nagappan, Mei

A2 - Chan, W.K.

PB - IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

CY - Piscataway NJ USA

Y2 - 11 December 2020 through 14 December 2020

ER -

Xu G, Hu Y, Guo Q, He R, Li L, Xu G et al. Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study. In Budnik C, Nagappan M, Chan WK, editors, Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security, QRS 2020. Piscataway NJ USA: IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. 2020. p. 518-526 doi: 10.1109/QRS51102.2020.00072

Dissecting mobile offerwall advertisements: an explorative study

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

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