This actually applies to most HTC handsets, heck, maybe most phones, but this is the Dream forum and I wanted to talk about the Dream (since I own one). I actually had realized this the day I first rooted my phone, but it had been on the back of my mind until today when I ported MCR 2.6 for the Dream and saw the laughable WaveSecure app. I then thought about posting this general warning for Dream users and hopefully we can brainstorm and bring this big security hole to an end.
WaveSecure is an app that runs as a high priority process in your phone and it can do silly things such as disallow the usage of the device or access to the data on it by placing a locking screen on your phone. To enable your phone back, you enter a pin. Does that sound familiar? Ofcourse, your phone already has a lockscreen. The app also has a few backup and restore features, but nothing that hasn't been done before. Probably the only worthwhile feature is the ability to lock your phone remotely (but then the lockscreen was already active anyway).
Our rooted phones are different than stock ones, though. If you lose your phone and a knowledgeable person gets a hold of it, all they have to do is reset the phone, hold Home and Red, and voila, they have access to ALL your personal data inside your phone. I'm not only talking about the SDCard here, because accessing that data is so stupidly simple, but your phone writes enormous amounts of personal data to /data. There you can find account logins for all your installed apps, contacts info, you can find browser cache info and if you do your banking on your phone's Browser and have cookies set, well, they're all there. I've looked through several of the files in /data and most things there are dumped in human readable format, so a crook wouldn't even have to try very hard. I found my home's wifi hidden SSID AND 22 character lenght alphanumerical WAP2 encryption key in a file, and both were labeled as such .
One solution I see is easy, modify recovery to give you an option to prompt for password on start. But there's still the fact that, with the device on, we can still adb remount and then adb pull /data, so the adb binary would also have to be re-written for this purpose.
There's still yet another problem, though. Fastboot... Most of us are running a flavor of an Engineering SPL (either Death SPL or Hard SPL), and even if we block /recovery and /system, a crook can still fastboot flash boot and fastboot flash system and with a minimal booting image (no android runtime, only enough in /bin to boot a linux system) he can still get adb pull /data access.
That's where I'm at a loss, though. How do we patch SPL to prevent unauthorized usage? Are there any other security gaps I might have missed?
Comment, discuss, develop.
I'm confused. Wiping clears out the /data partition. Where are you getting all this data from post-wipe?
And that's exactly why I carry my important data safely with me. Wipe clears out the /data partition as much as "Emptying the Recycle Bin" erases deleted data in Windows.... meaning, it's still there. Although flash memory is better at deleting data, it can still be easily recovered, but then again, how are you supposed to wipe if you don't have the phone with you. I didn't see anything about remote wipe. Also, any person with two neurons firing would think right away about removing the battery and SIM before attempting anything.
Also, so let's say a wipe did clear /data entirely and you were able to remotely wipe EVERY SINGLE TIME the phone was lost or stolen (I once went a week without realizing I had lost my phone, paying that kind of bill and talking to Customer Service for hours on end is no fun), it still doesn't mean that the security gaps are not there. I still think they should be fixed, even if to foil people not interested in the data at all but on using the phone for their own. Don't you hate it when people find phones on the street, and instead of trying to return it they take it to their nearest mom & pop phone shop and have it unlocked, etc?
Oh, I see what you meant XD. Edited my post.
I've noticed this too, but the safest way to secure it is to have android encrypt the files as they are put on the data partition. Even then, that data is still unsecure. We should file an issue with the google code page for android and have them worry about it
Well, this has actually been considered...
For 'droid 1.6: From the home screen, Menu --> Settings --> Security --> "Use secure credentials". It is, of course, up to the application to make use of secure credentials. This is something that you should question the developers of secure applications about.
Other times, you may note that applications like "Password safe" will password protect and encrypt their data sets.
So it is definitely up to you to ensure that the applications that you use are written with security in mind.
Now for your home wifi password... does that really matter that much? They have to actually be IN (or very near to) your home to make use of it.
B-man007 said:
I've noticed this too, but the safest way to secure it is to have android encrypt the files as they are put on the data partition. Even then, that data is still unsecure. We should file an issue with the google code page for android and have them worry about it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No device can be more secure than being encrypted (assuming use of strong encryption). There is most definitely NO WAY EXCEPT encryption to secure your data.
I guarantee that EVEN WITH a no-root recovery partition and a no-fastboot bootloader that enforces system image signatures, that the data on the device *CAN STILL* be read off it.
It is definitely impossible to secure these devices against being read through something like jtag. And if it is read through jtag, the only thing that can possibly protect your data is encryption.
is it possible to do a complete wipe of the device? i know its not permanent but i figure if i quit banking online after i wipe the phone then i am no longer succeptible to that form of theft
I bet this is making some people that sold their rooted G1's nervous right now lol
this is the same issue blackberry users have, , even with a remote wipe ,there was concern that data can still be retrieved. That's also why the secret service is so concerned about the president having and using one daily, if its ever lost or stolen, ,,well you know, ,,
So rooted or not android is not the only platform with this issue. .
I would like to address this
"Don't you hate it when people find phones on the street, and instead of trying to return it they take it to their nearest mom & pop phone shop and have it unlocked, etc?"
Did you know if you called any cellphone carrier that you have and told them your phone was lost/stolen they will put the IMEI or ESN on the lost/stolen list, and then it can no longer be active on their network and from what I hear any other networks.
card13 said:
I would like to address this
"Don't you hate it when people find phones on the street, and instead of trying to return it they take it to their nearest mom & pop phone shop and have it unlocked, etc?"
Did you know if you called any cellphone carrier that you have and told them your phone was lost/stolen they will put the IMEI or ESN on the lost/stolen list, and then it can no longer be active on their network and from what I hear any other networks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on where you are, here in Canada, if it gets blacklisted by Rogers, it will still work on Fido (which happens to be owned by rogers).
There is also the possibility of rewriting the IMEI. Not exactly a major difficulty.
I have an idea. Since that, if someone gets hold of your phone physically, there's no way that he/she will be restricted from accessing the data, unless it's encrypted properly.
Therefore, to enhance the security, the data (or at least, /data) should be encrypted all time. I'm not familiar with Linux so I have no idea if it's doable or not, but that's a start.
That way, even if someone gets hold of your phone, and flash/hack/cheat all kinds of things, fastboot, recovery, adb... He/she will still be unable to access your data.
To do this, the bootloader (or the init script?) needs to implement a way to unlock the data.
To further increase the security, remote shutdown and wipe should be implemented as well.
Remote lock will NOT work because, while a phone is locked, it means it's running, and the data is already unencrypted at that point, and while I don't have much knowledge in hacking. I think a serious-enough person can hack the phone and get the data.
Of course, this still doesn't solve the problem that, if you, or your family member, is being held at gunpoint.
Just my 2 cents.
1) No changes to bootloader. Bootloader is not relevant to encrypted /data. The changes would be to add in the appropriate encryption scheme to the kernel. Also, to mount the /data partition using the selected encryption method, and to prompt at the appropriate time (mount time) for password. This would be DURING BOOT.
2) The reason you don't want to do this is that d/encryption eats CPU and memory.
bug666 said:
I have an idea. Since that, if someone gets hold of your phone physically, there's no way that he/she will be restricted from accessing the data, unless it's encrypted properly.
Therefore, to enhance the security, the data (or at least, /data) should be encrypted all time. I'm not familiar with Linux so I have no idea if it's doable or not, but that's a start.
That way, even if someone gets hold of your phone, and flash/hack/cheat all kinds of things, fastboot, recovery, adb... He/she will still be unable to access your data.
To do this, the bootloader (or the init script?) needs to implement a way to unlock the data.
To further increase the security, remote shutdown and wipe should be implemented as well.
Remote lock will NOT work because, while a phone is locked, it means it's running, and the data is already unencrypted at that point, and while I don't have much knowledge in hacking. I think a serious-enough person can hack the phone and get the data.
Of course, this still doesn't solve the problem that, if you, or your family member, is being held at gunpoint.
Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lbcoder said:
1) No changes to bootloader. Bootloader is not relevant to encrypted /data. The changes would be to add in the appropriate encryption scheme to the kernel. Also, to mount the /data partition using the selected encryption method, and to prompt at the appropriate time (mount time) for password. This would be DURING BOOT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So that's the init scripts?
lbcoder said:
2) The reason you don't want to do this is that d/encryption eats CPU and memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And battery, may I add?
To what extent is the question, I don't think it's a must-have feature for everybody, but think some may be willing to put up with the trade off...?
bug666 said:
So that's the init scripts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mainly kernel, but yes, some adjustment would have to be made to the init.
And battery, may I add?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Certainly. Anything that eats CPU eats batter.
To what extent is the question, I don't think it's a must-have feature for everybody, but think some may be willing to put up with the trade off...?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A better implementation would be to encrypt *some* data, i.e. application home directories, but specifically NOT the ~/lib directory. Because really, do you CARE if your APK's or dalvik cache are encrypted or not? This would minimize the performance impact (to negligible) while providing the desired data security.
Also, encryption on a per-application basis would allow this to be done withOUT having to pause bootup to ask for a password... it could be done more intelligently on first-access-attempt.
Anybody tried using Walkie Vault (http://www.walkie-vault.com/)...? Can it encrypt the data/home folder...?
A system-wide usable encryption system that different apps may make use of is a good idea, but is it on Android's agenda yet...?
It hasn't quite entered the collective consciousness that the connected smartphone, as configured today and if logged into online services, is the ultimate personal identity device. Unlike other personal effects we keep on us at all times (id cards, keys), a Google login gives a thief potentially a treasure trove of data to exploit without requiring any further identification to the phone other than the lock screen (assuming the user has set one). Once it becomes a big enough issue we may see solutions such as:
- Built in biometric identification (fingerprint scan, iris scan) replaces lock screen.
- OS framework requires apps storing sensitive user data to store into encrypted databases, authenticated from above biometric keys.
- Carriers, digital identity providers (e.g. Google, MSN) providing remote wipe as free standard services and accessible over the phone, not just a web page.
No computer is 100% secure.
Biometrics are often easy to fool.
3 of the fingerprint scanners I have encountered were easily by-passed with a pencil, and a rubber glove. Not to say they are all like that, but some are super simple to get around. Myth busters bypassed one with a photo copier and a sharpie. My buddy bought one super cheap, and put it on his wife's computer to make her feel safer. We bypassed it by breathing on it. (it was super cheap)
The current "Lock" on the G1 is like that super cheap biometric scanner. Your fingers leave behind oils. Oils are what leave the marks on the screen. Breathe hot air on the screen and you can see the pattern of the lock sequence. Some lock.
Note to self: remember to wipe off screen everytime you unlock phone.
I think that the best way around this is to remove all the data from the phone in the first place. For several years now I have been telling my friends that google's ultimate goal will be server side data storage that you log into to use.
The world of cell phones is headed this direction as well.
Google voice, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Cloud....all operate under the idea that you connect to the data, manipulate it, save it, then (ideally) your device forgets it was there.
If you want to stop cell phone theft, you have to hard code the phone to accept only one set of data, and any attempt to change that data in a way not prescribed by the phone will result in the destruction of the data and the usability of the phone. Not real cost effective for a device that lasts on the average of 18 months.
Another option is to make a daily use phone. Only good for 24 hours. Then you have to get a new one. Make them cheap, and disposable.
Common users would freak out over having to back up the data all the time, or you would need a uplink storage location like...oh say Google voice, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Cloud.
The average consumer has no clue what that thing in their hand is capable of doing, storing, or tracking. The techno geek is the problem and much like ROM's, what stops a Techno geek today, won't necessarily stop him tomorrow.
In the mean time, wave secure at least offers you the satisfaction of telling you when someone has put a different sim in your phone.
And it will scare the crap out of someone when they pull out the sim card. it is very loud!
But I agree the android system needs a better lock.
Maybe a mod could be prepared to separate /data into a cryptfs system, only trouble is that to make it secure a start/unlock password would need to be entered.
Hi,
I am thinking about encrypting my Nexus 4. I am already using encryption on all my computers but I never tried it on my smartphone, so there are three questions I hope you will answer:
1)
How is battery life affected? Well, fortunately the battery of the Nexus 4 is quite good and I hope encryption won't waste too much.
2)
How is speed affected? My Desktop CPU has AES-NI and there's a SSD, so you don't even recognize system encryption. How is it doing on the Nexus 4? I'm just doing the usual smartphone stuff, means E-Mail, messaging, phoning, checking News &Weather and sometimes playing Doodle Jump. My research on the Internet about encryption performance on Android didn't bring up things I can really rely on so I hope someone here can tell me his experiences.
3)
Which algorithm is used exactly? I know it's dm_crypt and I'm using it on my other computers, too, but on my PC I can choose which algorithm I want and on Android it's given as far as I know.
Regards,
becha
You can't use patter lock to unlock your screen, which is a pian for me right now.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
1. Barely noticeable
2. Same as 1
3. Not sure
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
1) I doesn't notice any real impact on battery life. Used the N4 several months before encrypting it.
2) Booting the phone is slowed down, and not only because you have to enter the key for accessing the encrypted drive. But opening apps and doing backup, etc. isn't slowed down. I guess I wouldn't even notice an encrypted devices and so did no one until now, while using my phone.
I was also doubtful before, because in my experience, on a laptop back in the days (5 years ago), the battery drain and performance impact was just to big. But on the other side, I do a lot more disk based tasks on my laptop, than I do on my phone.
in short, after I lost my last phone, I really wanted to give it a try and I didn't regret it until now.
Hoping to hear good answers to question 3.
@HB_Mosh
Well, that's not too bad for me because I don't use Unlock Patterns.
@Vanhoud @memleak
Thanks for sharing your experiences, I'll give encryption a shot.
becha said:
@HB_Mosh
Well, that's not too bad for me because I don't use Unlock Patterns.
@Vanhoud @memleak
Thanks for sharing your experiences, I'll give encryption a shot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you please tell us your experiences, i was thinking about it, i guess you can CWM, encrypt then restore backup if you want to revert without starting all over
Yesterday I encrypted my Nexus 4, it took around an half an hour. Until now (well, one day...) I didn't discover any problems apart from the fact, that my Nexus 4 did a simple restart for the first time when trying to encrypt it. Everything went fine when trying the second time. The phone itself runs fluent, so up to now I didn't see any performance problems.
Now I can't backup my ROM - any suggestions? Perhaps Recovery can mount to an external USB storage or something? What a pain! You can't un-encrypt either, and there's no way to mount encrypted storage in Recovery I wanted to backup before installing privacy protection in case it borked my phone.
Another encryption question...
Don't mean to hijack this thread, but can anyone tell me if OTA updates will still work on a stock, unrooted N4 that's been encrypted?
Can't find a definitive answer - some have had success on other devices and others haven't.
I don't see why turning on stock encryption on a stock unmodified device would make any difference?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
DroidBois said:
I don't see why turning on stock encryption on a stock unmodified device would make any difference?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't sure why / if this would make a difference either but as I said, I can't find a definitive answer. Some people say that you need to factory reset in order to remove the encryption before you can apply an OTA update, but others say different.
I'd be interested to know if the OTA would work after simply asking you for your encryption PIN on reboot, or if the encryption would prevent the OTA being applied because of the encrypted storage. Does anyone have any experience of this?
DroidBois said:
Now I can't backup my ROM - any suggestions? Perhaps Recovery can mount to an external USB storage or something? What a pain! You can't un-encrypt either, and there's no way to mount encrypted storage in Recovery I wanted to backup before installing privacy protection in case it borked my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to use TWRP Recovery, which is able to mount your encrypted internal storage.
No way.. I thought I'd tried every option I could think of in TWRP but I'll take a closer look.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
If you start TWRP, it should automatically ask for your passphrase to read the encrypted internal storage. Latest version of TWRP works for me, older ones had bugs regarding to encrypted devices.
Was curious about this feature of the phone. ...I know what encryption is. ... but, in regards to phones, I do not. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Like, what it does exactly, how it works, does implementing it in my device effect it on an os level or kernel?...any other general information about it is very appreciated. ..... tried google, but it just kept bringing up "15 things you must know about your s5" articles and the like.
beav3r
Skynyrd420 said:
Was curious about this feature of the phone. ...I know what encryption is. ... but, in regards to phones, I do not. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Like, what it does exactly, how it works, does implementing it in my device effect it on an os level or kernel?...any other general information about it is very appreciated. ..... tried google, but it just kept bringing up "15 things you must know about your s5" articles and the like.
beav3r
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can encrypt the device (Settings > Security >Encrypt). However, you will NOT be able to use the fingerprint scanner if you do this. This process takes around one hour and scrambles all the data. Every time you turn on the device you need to enter a passcode before it boots. This helps to provide an extra layer of security on top of the regular PIN or password.
Read more: http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/22034/samsung-galaxy-s5-top-15-tips-and-tricks#ixzz319NY0W4G
kprice8 said:
You can encrypt the device (Settings > Security >Encrypt). However, you will NOT be able to use the fingerprint scanner if you do this. This process takes around one hour and scrambles all the data. Every time you turn on the device you need to enter a passcode before it boots. This helps to provide an extra layer of security on top of the regular PIN or password.
Read more: http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/22034/samsung-galaxy-s5-top-15-tips-and-tricks#ixzz319NY0W4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also recovering data off a damaged phone is impossible.
Unless you require your data to be fully encrypted and don't care if you lose it, because it is backed up; do not encrypt.
Thanks guys. Does anyone know the processes the phone goes through while encrypting? Or decrypting. ... just wondering if it would be beneficial at all If someone did a log cat while doing both, just to see if there is a hole that could have an exploit vulnerability. ... and, would dalvik vs ART during the process change that answer, since you're running "custom"while ART is on. ... I'm 99% sure it isn't going to help s#!%, but, never know, little things usually get overlooked.
beav3r
Hey andriod experts,
I've spent the good part of an entire day now researching data recovery and the galaxy note 3 and posting in some droid forums, but my issue is a little more complex than many seem to be able to comprehend. I also learned that there are websites setup just for the sole purpose of directing you to download and then pay for data recovery programs, none of which solve my problem --- all of which take over nearly all goolge search results when researching this issue.
FYI: Note 3 SM-N900V - Verizon
Android 4.4.2
not rooted
my phone began acting up and I did a factory reset on it, not realizing many of my photos were being stored on the internal storage as opposed to the removable SD card.
Im familiar with being able to run recovery programs on SD cards, removable storage, and even hard drives, so I figured it would not be a problem to run a program on the phone. However, when attached to a USB, my computer only recognizes the phone as a portable media device and will not assign it a drive letter.
After doing some research, I tried to enter developer mode and enabled USB debugging mode -- which some websites hinted that would solve the problem and my computer would recognize the phone as a drive, but still, no luck.
I even tried to root my phone using Kingo -- but that proved to fail after what appears to be because my OS updated to 4.2.2. on its own before I rooted and that apparently causes some issue with Kingo.- -- so it looks like I'm stuck on that path.
I then contacted Samsung, thinking I'd get help from someone who knew what they were doing, but my questions flew far above my customer service rep's head.
searching the net proves useless because it is so over saturated with spammy websites designed to get you to download and purchase recovery programs.... none of which work for the Note 3 given the fact that they need to be able to see a drive.
Does anyone have any idea of a work-around, and if there is any way I can try to recover the photos?
Thanks so much!
-James
Your media files should have remained intact which is weird.
I assume you are positive that you didn't have any of the picture backup options setup that you may have not realized? For example all mine go to Dropbox and G+ every time I hit wifi.
Being very familiar with recovery on computers but never trying this on a phone I would try and search for things like the app wifi explorer and maybe if your lucky it can see ./trash or something. I would be shocked if you could mount the phone and do a true recovery program.
I will search and try to help as well as I feel your pain .
fletch33 said:
Your media files should have remained intact which is weird.
I assume you are positive that you didn't have any of the picture backup options setup that you may have not realized? For example all mine go to Dropbox and G+ every time I hit wifi.
Being very familiar with recovery on computers but never trying this on a phone I would try and search for things like the app wifi explorer and maybe if your lucky it can see ./trash or something. I would be shocked if you could mount the phone and do a true recovery program.
I will search and try to help as well as I feel your pain .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the pictures in question were actually all taken and saved to internal storage because they were taken with the snapchat app as opposed to the camera app -- my camera app does indeed auto-backup to g+.
Hell, I'd even be willing to take the phone apart and rig up some fancy wiring with a card reader if I knew it would get access to the storage as a drive. -- just assumed snapchat was saving things to the SD card. -- Will try to search the phone, but from my understanding doing a factory reset essentially formats that partition of the internal storage.... no?
-J
Yeah factory reset wipes app data and keeps media data.
Poor choice on snapchat to store stuff like that. Honestly though I only know snapchat by name and have never seen it.
i may have found something for you right HERE on XDA.
hope it works