$μ$SE: Mutation-based Evaluation of Security-focused Static Analysis Tools for Android
This work addresses the need for robust evaluation methods in Android security analysis, though it is incremental as it adapts mutation testing from software testing to this domain.
The paper tackles the problem of evaluating security-focused static analysis tools for Android by introducing μSE, a mutation-based tool that systematically uncovers soundness issues, finding 25 previously undocumented flaws in static data leak detection tools.
This demo paper presents the technical details and usage scenarios of $μ$SE: a mutation-based tool for evaluating security-focused static analysis tools for Android. Mutation testing is generally used by software practitioners to assess the robustness of a given test-suite. However, we leverage this technique to systematically evaluate static analysis tools and uncover and document soundness issues. $μ$SE's analysis has found 25 previously undocumented flaws in static data leak detection tools for Android. $μ$SE offers four mutation schemes, namely Reachability, Complex-reachability, TaintSink, and ScopeSink, which determine the locations of seeded mutants. Furthermore, the user can extend $μ$SE by customizing the API calls targeted by the mutation analysis. $μ$SE is also practical, as it makes use of filtering techniques based on compilation and execution criteria that reduces the number of ineffective mutations.