Centralized Application Approval Offloading Mobile Device Resources
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mobile devices face challenges in managing application installations due to limited battery life, computational power, storage capacity, and network bandwidth, making traditional whitelist/blacklist models impractical for comprehensive application approval and malware detection, especially in a BYOD environment where devices are used for both personal and business activities.
Innovation Solution
A system where a device management server remotely manages application whitelists and blacklists, allowing or disallowing installations and removals based on centralized authorization lists, reducing the need for local storage and computation on mobile devices, and enabling real-time monitoring and updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional whitelist/blacklist models are used on mobile devices, then application approval and malware detection can be performed, but battery life, computational power, storage capacity, and network bandwidth are excessively consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the computationally intensive whitelist/blacklist management and application approval functions from the mobile device and relocates them to a remote server. The mobile device retains only the essential function of transmitting application information for approval and receiving decisions, thereby eliminating the energy consumption associated with maintaining extensive authorization lists locally and performing complex approval algorithms on battery-powered hardware.
2Reliability
If extensive application whitelists and blacklists are maintained locally on mobile devices, then comprehensive application approval can be achieved, but storage capacity is exceeded
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a remote server as an intermediary between the mobile device and the application approval system. Instead of storing extensive whitelists and blacklists locally on the mobile device, the server maintains these comprehensive authorization lists and provides approval decisions to the device. This mediator approach allows the mobile device to achieve comprehensive application approval accuracy without consuming local storage capacity.
3Reliability
If frequent updates of application blacklists and whitelists are performed on mobile devices, then security can be maintained, but network bandwidth and data usage are excessively consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the responsibility of maintaining and updating authorization lists from the mobile device and places it on the remote server. The server handles all updates to whitelists and blacklists centrally, and mobile devices receive only the necessary approval decisions. This extraction eliminates the need for frequent bidirectional synchronization of extensive list data over the network, thereby maintaining security while significantly reducing network bandwidth consumption.
4Reliability
If heuristics scanning is performed on mobile devices, then malware detection capability is improved, but computational power and battery capacity are insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a remote server as an intermediary to perform malware detection functions. Instead of requiring the mobile device to execute computationally intensive heuristics scanning algorithms locally, the device transmits application information to the server, which performs the malware detection analysis and returns approval or rejection decisions. This mediator approach enables robust malware detection capability while working within the computational power constraints of mobile devices.
Data Source
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AI summary
A system and method for confirming an application change event of a mobile device is disclosed. A device (14) remote from the mobile device stores an application authorization list identifying a plurality of mobile applications and receives an application authorization request, including application identification, from the mobile device (10) over a communications network (36). The application identification is compared with one or more listed mobile applications in the application authorization list and a decision instruction containing an authorization decision is produced. The decision instruction is sent to the mobile device for subsequent processing of the decision instruction by a mobile agent. The decision may relate to the authorization of an installation or removal of the application.