2025/02/07 by Akila Niroshan, Niroshan, Akila, Suranga Seneviratne +3
Computer Science · #Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting #Software Engineering (cs.SE) #Spam and Phishing Detection
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.04636
openalex publication_date 2025/02/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Android ecosystem is vulnerable to issues such as app repackaging, counterfeiting, and piracy, threatening both developers and users. To mitigate these risks, developers often employ code obfuscation techniques. However, while effective in protecting legitimate applications, obfuscation also hinders security investigations as it is often exploited for malicious purposes. As such, it is important to understand code obfuscation practices in Android apps. In this paper, we analyze over 500,000 Android APKs from Google Play, spanning an eight-year period, to investigate the evolution and prevalence of code obfuscation techniques. First, we propose a set of classifiers to detect obfuscated code, tools, and techniques and then conduct a longitudinal analysis to identify trends. Our results show a 13% increase in obfuscation from 2016 to 2023, with ProGuard and Allatori as the most commonly used tools. We also show that obfuscation is more prevalent in top-ranked apps and gaming genres such as Casino apps. To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale study of obfuscation adoption in the Google Play Store, providing insights for developers and security analysts.