AbstractsComputer Science

Security System for Mobile Messaging Applications

by Pejman Dashtinejad




Institution: KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: Mobile; Application; messaging; Chat; Encryption; Security
Record ID: 1352588
Full text PDF: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-167125


Abstract

Instant messaging (IM) applications are one of the most popular applications for smartphones. The IMs have the capability of sending messages or initiating voice calls via Internet which makes it almost cost free for the users to communicate with each other. Unfortunately, like any other type of applications, majority of these applications are vulnerable to malicious attacks and have privacy issues. The motivation for this thesis is the need to identifying security services of an IM application and to design a secure system for any mobile messaging application. This research proposes an E2EE (End-to-End Encryption) approach which provides a secure IM application design which protects its users with better integrity, confidentiality and privacy. To achieve this goal a research is conducted to investigate current security features of popular messaging applications in the mobile market. A list of requirements for good security is generated and based on those requirements an architecture is designed. A demo is also implemented and evaluated.