The Effectiveness of Application Permissions Adrienne Porter Felt,∗ Kate Greenwood, David Wagner University of California, Berkeley apf, kate eli,
[email protected] Abstract cations’ permission requirements up-front so that users can grant them during installation. Traditional user-based permission systems assign the Traditional user-based permission systems assign the user’s full privileges to all applications. Modern plat- user’s full privileges to all of the user’s applications. In forms are transitioning to a new model, in which each the application permission model, however, each appli- application has a different set of permissions based on cation can have a customized set of permissions based its requirements. Application permissions offer several on its individual privilege requirements. If most applica- advantages over traditional user-based permissions, but tions can be satisfied with less than the user’s full priv- these benefits rely on the assumption that applications ileges, then three advantages of application permissions generally require less than full privileges. We explore over the traditional user-based model are possible: whether that assumption is realistic, which provides in- sight into the value of application permissions. • User Consent: Security-conscious users may be We perform case studies on two platforms with appli- hesitant to grant access to dangerous permissions cation permissions, the Google Chrome extension sys- without justification. For install-time systems, this tem and the Android OS. We collect the permission re- might alert some users to malware at installation; quirements of a large set of Google Chrome extensions for time-of-use systems, this can prevent an in- and Android applications.