  Third-party libraries (TPLs) have been widely used in mobile apps, which play
an essential part in the entire Android ecosystem. However, TPL is a
double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can ease the development of mobile
apps. On the other hand, it also brings security risks such as privacy leaks or
increased attack surfaces (e.g., by introducing over-privileged permissions) to
mobile apps. Although there are already many studies for characterizing
third-party libraries, including automated detection, security and privacy
analysis of TPLs, TPL attributes analysis, etc., what strikes us odd is that
there is no systematic study to summarize those studies' endeavors. To this
end, we conduct the first systematic literature review on Android TPL-related
research. Following a well-defined systematic literature review protocol, we
collected 74 primary research papers closely related to the Android third-party
library from 2012 to 2020. After carefully examining these studies, we designed
a taxonomy of TPL-related research studies and conducted a systematic study to
summarize current solutions, limitations, challenges and possible implications
of new research directions related to third-party library analysis. We hope
that these contributions can give readers a clear overview of existing
TPL-related studies and inspire them to go beyond the current status quo by
advancing the discipline with innovative approaches.
