A Mobile application for administering access control on mobile devices

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Mobile Telecommunication and Innovation at (MSc.MTI) at Strathmore UniversityMobile phones have become an integral part in our daily lives where services are now being offered through mobile applications. These applications rely on the mobile phone’s local storage to store application specific data and also user data. This results to sensitive data ranging from personal data to corporate data being stored on the mobile phones which need to be protected from unauthorised people in case of malicious people trying to access sensitive data, theft or misplacement of the mobile phone. Control on the access of these sensitive data needs to be taken into consideration. This research is aimed at finding the different types of access control mechanisms and which one will be best suited for a mobile device by determining the features that need to be included in order to provide a comprehensive secure access control mechanism. Therefore, this led to the development of a mobile application that aims at preventing unauthorised users from accessing sensitive data on the mobile phone. The development of the application was achieved using the Agile Software Development Methodology since it provides a more flexible approach with the changing needs of the user and to easily add new functionalities whenever they are identified. This methodology eased the process of user acceptability as the user was involved in the development process. Testing and validations of the final system was done to ensure the solution solves the problems specified in th