A Look at the Mobile App Identification Landscape

Abstract

The number of mobile devices and apps have grown tremendously in recent years, resulting in a dramatic increase in mobile traffic. This trend is expected to create a nearly 10-fold increase in global mobile data over the next 5 years, bringing mobile traffic analysis into focus. However, traditional traffic analysis approaches don't work well for mobile traffic. Mobile apps possess unique characteristics that make it exceedingly difficult to determine which app generated a flow. Here, the author discusses the challenges in mobile traffic analysis and presents a survey of techniques that address these issues.