Data Extraction, Attacks and Protection on Android Clipboard

The Android clipboard acts as a buffer storage space for storing and enabling user’s convenience for data transfer between multiple applications. However, this utility becomes the potential target for exploitation by the attackers. The clipboard may contain many sensitive information, such as addresses, phone numbers, passwords, credit/debit card details, and some personal messages as well. In this paper, we evaluated and implemented common techniques used by attackers, such as JavaScript code injection, social media application based phishing attacks targeting data integrity, XSS (cross side scripting attacks) etc. Such attacks utilize the android system’s default behavior of open clipboard access to all applications. We also proposed a framework based on androguard for protection against such attacks. The study showed that the proposed system is effective in handling JavaScript based code injection attacks.