Database Info

[Q] Lets chat encryption

How many of you have encrypted your N5? Does it interfere with flashing ROM's, Kernels etc? With the revelations as of late (and Google backing of default encryption), was just wondering the adoption and general usage encounters we here have had with the encryption capabilities of the phone.

What it does interfere with is performance. On my Nexus you can really feel it - both in data transfers and boot up time for both the system and apps with large caches .
That being said it depends on your security requirements. I don't keep sensitive data on my phone ( unless you count photos of my dog's ass ) ) which means that encryption is wasted on me. I don't even have a pin lock or screen lock - they can be bypassed too easy , they waste time to unlock and they might force the "finder" to wipe the phone before I can remotely locate it .

From my point of view, there are more cons than pros for the encryption for the time being especially when it affects performance. Leaving encryption off until performance issues are fixed.

Thanks for the feedback, I was considering it out of principle, but then again like you, I dont have any sensitive company or personal data on there, unless you consider my run of the mill texts and convos. Cheers!

Fingerprint data storage

I've been googling around and haven't found an answer on how the fingerprint data is stored on the phones and is it safe regardless of device encryption?
The S5 implementation of the data was horrible and Samsung is not to concerned it seems. At least Apple clearly outlines how and where the data is stored.
Any one know? I really want to start using the fingerprint on my s6

I think it is stored encrypted on /data/biometrics

Yup that is the correct path, are you sure it's encrypted?

Some Security questions

Hello guys, i have a few question that i would like to ask.
My boss is considering S8 as his new phone and he need to know about device security.
1.If you encrypt device how tough it is for police to open it?
No criminal activity done but police is part of the fight between companies. And it is the cheapest fighting method.
2.Is it possible to wire the phone without hardware mod?
Like for example using some sort of wireless method or wireless activation of cam or microphone?
3.If i turn on wipe device after 10 bad password attempts is it wiped completely without any possible way of recovery?
There will be no SD card used. Only internal memory.
4.What is safer? S8 or iPhone 7 Plus
5.Can there be software sent and installed to phone without user interaction?
Thank you so much for your answers.

It's impossible to directly crack the phone's encryption if you use a secure password. The SD card can be securely encrypted as well. Biometric unlocking is less secure, if you set that up (though if you shut the phone down, only the password will unlock it). There is an option to have the phone wiped after multiple failed password entries, but that gives no extra protection from serious attackers who can copy the phone's storage and work from the copy rather than the original. So you need a secure, unguessable password.
Courts may be able to compel you to unlock your phone (or jail you until you comply). Different jurisdictions have different (and changing) rules on the matter.
All phones are designed with strong measures against installing malware. And the S8's Secure Folders feature adds another layer of safety. Nonetheless, vulnerabilities are discovered all the time. They're patched by monthly security updates, but new ones still pop up. So it's impossible to guarantee the absence of malware (including malware that uses the microphone). Empirically, however, it appears to be quite rare for a modern phone, with up-to-date patches and other best security practices, to be seriously compromised.
But of course your boss will need to do their own research and verify all these claims from reliable sources, not from unknown people on an internet forum.

Possibility of recovering data from Android phone that fell into sea water?

Background:
A person I know, dropped his phone (Android Oreo or above) into the water while at a beach. He tried keeping the phone in a bag of rice etc., but he can't get it to work. It won't even start. Samsung support said he'd need to replace the motherboard. He does not want the phone working again, but he wants the vacation photos from the phone. In Bangalore, there are some data recovery services that say they can recover the data for him (one of them mentioned some Spider technology).
Primary question:
Is the data recovery team's claim that they can recover the photos, actually legitimate? Can the photos be recovered from the phone in such a situation? How would they do it? Since the data on the phone would be encrypted (a password was needed to unlock the phone), would the data recovery team use a motherboard from a similar phone, connect it to the data storage and ask him to type his password to be able to access the data? If instead they removed the NAND storage and connected it to another board, wouldn't it be impossible to access the data without typing the phone's unlock password to decrypt it?
Concerns:
They might be bluffing, and this could just be a way to get paid for the "effort" that they put in to try recovering the data even if they can't eventually do it.
The data recovery team could clone the data and use brute-force techniques to gain access to any other data.
They could misuse any payment information stored on the phone.
They may view WhatsApp chats or other WhatsApp data stored (he says his WhatsApp is protected by fingerprint recognition).

if privacy is the main concern here, do it through samsung, through the official means. whats more important, the price of a motherboard or their privacy ?

Question Security after rooting?

Hi!
I'm considering buying Pixel 6a for its worth at around 300USD worth but after using Android for several years, I'm concerned about security after rooting, like after theft etc.
Afaik, if bootloader is unlocked, the thief can just flash a new image and that's it!
It's different with iOS where icloud lock (even after jailbreak) can render the device practically unusable.
Can someone guide if some kind of google lock is a possibility nówadays with Android or newer versions of Android?

Are you looking at this from a data security standpoint? Or from "make sure its worthless to the thief".
Data security I believe is much more important than causing the phone to self destruct if stolen, and from a data security standpoint, you don't need to worry about root, because the data stored in the userdata partition is ENCRYPTED, and this encryption is tied to lockscreen security. In other words, they need to be able to legitimately get past the lockscreen in order to have unencumbered access to your data, regardless of what they change with respect to boot and system partitions.
If on the other hand, you're more worried about rendering the device worthless if stolen (i.e., thief can't actually use it), then you're actually talking about gooble's factory reset protection, which pretty much locks you to factory images, and locked bootloaders, and the "unlock bootloader" switch set to not-unlockable.
Factory reset protection works by forcing you to validate that you are the owner of the gooble account previously registered as owner of the device. It can be trivially bypassed as long as the "allow oem unlocking" flag is set to true, or the device has a 3rd party OS key installed, such as from grapheneos.
Also, having the device REPORTED as stolen if it is, will make it unable to connect to a cellular network, which pretty effectively makes it worthless.

Thanks for detailed answer. It answers my question.
While data is first priority, rendering device non-usable is also a deterrent.
Gotta find some ROMs which allow encryption tho. Thanks again

tarun0 said:
Thanks for detailed answer. It answers my question.
While data is first priority, rendering device non-usable is also a deterrent.
Gotta find some ROMs which allow encryption tho. Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It isn't a useful deterrent to theft, because they have to steal it first before they can find out if its been rendered useless or not. Its not like they'll return it if they find out that its useless.

tarun0 said:
Hi!
I'm considering buying Pixel 6a for its worth at around 300USD worth but after using Android for several years, I'm concerned about security after rooting, like after theft etc.
Afaik, if bootloader is unlocked, the thief can just flash a new image and that's it!
It's different with iOS where icloud lock (even after jailbreak) can render the device practically unusable.
Can someone guide if some kind of google lock is a possibility nówadays with Android or newer versions of Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be worried more about having unlocked bootloader as opposed to root.
Root can only be obtained via Magisk, which creates a layer making your System think that Magisk is a part of it. No root could be obtained other than through Magisk manager, and even then, you will get a prompt to allow root to an app or adb. You can provide time limited root or one time only for apps. In other words, root gives the user control. Your OS already has root regardless of Magisk. All Magisk does is give you the power to grant or deny root.
Locked vs unlocked bootloader: this is where you should be concerned. If your bootloader is unlocked, it might be possible to boot or flash a modified recovery or TWRP that will have full write access to your system partitions, which are not encrypted. Android, unlike Linux or Windows never encrypted anything but data partition, and a few years ago, Google dropped even that in favor of file encryption. So, your data partition is no longer encrypted, just the files. So, when TWRP has full access to your system, an adversary may succeed in removing your screen lock/password/pattern and force system to boot straight without any lock. Note, the attacker wouldn't have to deal with encryption at all, but rather use natural Android weakness, which is: the first boot after installing a brand new rom is always without password prompt. So, in this case, the attacker will have the full access to your data.
With locked bootloader, this is not possible, as all fastboot actions are disabled.
99.9% of custom roms require unlocked bootloader. Those few, which are available on locked bootloader, do not provide root. There are only 1 or 2 developments that can provide optional root + locked bootloader.

optimumpro said:
You should be worried more about having unlocked bootloader as opposed to root.
Root can only be obtained via Magisk, which creates a layer making your System think that Magisk is a part of it. No root could be obtained other than through Magisk manager, and even then, you will get a prompt to allow root to an app or adb. You can provide time limited root or one time only for apps. In other words, root gives the user control. Your OS already has root regardless of Magisk. All Magisk does is give you the power to grant or deny root.
Locked vs unlocked bootloader: this is where you should be concerned. If your bootloader is unlocked, it might be possible to boot or flash a modified recovery or TWRP that will have full write access to your system partitions, which are not encrypted. Android, unlike Linux or Windows never encrypted anything by data partition, and a few years ago, Google dropped even that in favor of file encryption. So, your data partition is no longer encrypted, just the files. So, when TWRP has full access to your system, an adversary may succeed in removing your screen lock/password/pattern and force system to boot straight without any lock. Note, the attacker wouldn't have to deal with encryption at all, but rather use natural Android weakness, which is: the first boot after installing a brand new rom is always without password prompt. So, in this case, the attacker will full access to your data.
With locked bootloader, this is not possible, as all fastboot actions are disabled.
99.9% of custom roms require unlocked bootloader. Those few, which are available on locked bootloader, do not provide root. There are only 1 or 2 developments that can provide optional root + locked bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhh... So there are options albeit just 1 or 2 which can root with bootlocker locked!!
I thought it's just impossible to root without unlocking bootloader.
Thanks for the nice explanation

tarun0 said:
Ahhh... So there are options albeit just 1 or 2 which can root with bootlocker locked!!
I thought it's just impossible to root without unlocking bootloader.
Thanks for the nice explanation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just my view: if I were you, I wouldn't buy any Pixels phone that has Titan chip in it. It is just one more reliance on such a 'bastion' of privacy as Google. Note Titan is closed source, and not only it deals with certificates, but it can also modify firmware. Here is Zdnet's description:
"The Titan chip manufacturing process generates unique keying material for each chip, and securely stores this material -- along with provenance information -- into a registry database. The contents of this database are cryptographically protected using keys maintained in an offline quorum-based Titan Certification Authority (CA).
"Individual Titan chips can generate Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) directed at the Titan CA, which -- under the direction of a quorum of Titan identity administrators -- can verify the authenticity of the CSRs using the information in the registry database before issuing identity certificates."
So, each machine's individual key is stored with some 'magic' database maintained by Titan Certification Authority. In other words, an entity funded by three-letter agencies now has an additional database holding individual keys for each phone.

optimumpro said:
Just my view: if I were you, I wouldn't buy any Pixels phone that has Titan chip in it. It is just one more reliance on such a 'bastion' of privacy as Google. Note Titan is closed source, and not only it deals with certificates, but it can also modify firmware. Here is Zdnet's description:
"The Titan chip manufacturing process generates unique keying material for each chip, and securely stores this material -- along with provenance information -- into a registry database. The contents of this database are cryptographically protected using keys maintained in an offline quorum-based Titan Certification Authority (CA).
"Individual Titan chips can generate Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) directed at the Titan CA, which -- under the direction of a quorum of Titan identity administrators -- can verify the authenticity of the CSRs using the information in the registry database before issuing identity certificates."
So, each machine's individual key is stored with some 'magic' database maintained by Titan Certification Authority. In other words, an entity funded by three-letter agencies now has an additional database holding individual keys for each phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the opinion broski! But what brand are available there?
I don't like Samsung anymore because they destroy screen with update and don't help customers. Rest brand look more on papers but not in real.

tarun0 said:
Thanks for the opinion broski! But what brand are available there?
I don't like Samsung anymore because they destroy screen with update and don't help customers. Rest brand look more on papers but not in real.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Onepluses allow relocking bootloader on custom roms.

tarun0 said:
Thanks for the opinion broski! But what brand are available there?
I don't like Samsung anymore because they destroy screen with update and don't help customers. Rest brand look more on papers but not in real.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't be intimidated by the technical language - it's not as complicated as it seems. All hardware security modules come with a key that is installed at the factory and signed by the manufacturer. This initial key is only used to establish a basic level of trust, and the HSM will then generate a unique key for encrypting your data and performing attestation. This process is the same no matter what brand of device you use, whether it's an OnePlus, a pixel, or any other brand
Newer pixel models have a feature called ATTEST_KEY that allows each device to have its own unique keys. If one of these HSM keys were to be compromised, it wouldn't affect your security. However, rooting your phone can compromise your security and make verified boot ineffective, even if the bootloader is locked. If you value security, it's important not to root your phone

tarun0 said:
Ahhh... So there are options albeit just 1 or 2 which can root with bootlocker locked!!
I thought it's just impossible to root without unlocking bootloader.
Thanks for the nice explanation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This statement is incorrect. The Android user interface was not designed to handle permission prompts for root access. When you root your phone, you increase the potential for UI bugs that were previously not able to cause harm to become attack vectors that can be used to gain full access to your phone. Rooting also weakens the security of your phone by adding new permissive domains and making the *_app SELinux domains more permissive
It is heavily recommended to read this article https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html

tarun0 said:
Thanks for detailed answer. It answers my question.
While data is first priority, rendering device non-usable is also a deterrent.
Gotta find some ROMs which allow encryption tho. Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the past five years, it has been required that all Android phones have encryption enabled by default. If you purchase a Pixel phone, it will come with encryption already enabled, but you can further enhance the security of the encryption by installing GrapheneOS as they increase the file name padding length to the maximum supported by the kernel make certain attacks harder.
Block-based encryption is generally considered to be less secure than file-based encryption because it uses a single key to encrypt all data, rather than multiple keys for individual files (which is what FBE does). Android 10 introduced metadata encryption, which encrypts the sector 0 on the data partition, making it inaccessible to attackers even when attempting to access the data through recovery mode. One of the main reasons file-based encryption is preferred over block-based encryption is that it is more difficult to verify the security of block-based encryption, and the algorithms used in block-based verification can be complex and challenging to implement correctly. Additionally, block-based encryption only encrypts data and does not provide any integrity checking, so if the data becomes corrupt, there is no way to detect it and the decryption process will continue. This can result in broken files at best and potentially allow attackers to tamper with or exploit the Linux kernel at worst, as noted by Linux kernel maintainers

optimumpro said:
So, when TWRP has full access to your system, an adversary may succeed in removing your screen lock/password/pattern and force system to boot straight without any lock. Note, the attacker wouldn't have to deal with encryption at all, but rather use natural Android weakness, which is: the first boot after installing a brand new rom is always without password prompt. So, in this case, the attacker will have the full access to your data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This quote is mostly (the bad part) FALSE. The decryption on the files cannot be performed until AFTER the device has been unlocked. If an attacker installs something that skips the lockscreen, the files will NOT be decrypted, since that lockscreen password/pin/pattern/etc. is needed to gain access to the key.
No matter what, whether the device bootloader is unlocked or not, or the device has root access or not... if the device is physically outside of the owner's control, it is necessary to assume that security on it has been compromised and should not be trusted. As the owner, you should assume that it has been backdoored, so wipe it fully and reinstall OS.

there is one exception, though. in AFU state, FBE is already decrypted (same as FDE)
https://bugs.xdavidhu.me/google/2022/11/10/accidental-70k-google-pixel-lock-screen-bypass
(does not concern powered off devices)

96carboard said:
Are you looking at this from a data security standpoint? Or from "make sure its worthless to the thief".
Data security I believe is much more important than causing the phone to self destruct if stolen, and from a data security standpoint, you don't need to worry about root, because the data stored in the userdata partition is ENCRYPTED, and this encryption is tied to lockscreen security. In other words, they need to be able to legitimately get past the lockscreen in order to have unencumbered access to your data, regardless of what they change with respect to boot and system partitions.
If on the other hand, you're more worried about rendering the device worthless if stolen (i.e., thief can't actually use it), then you're actually talking about gooble's factory reset protection, which pretty much locks you to factory images, and locked bootloaders, and the "unlock bootloader" switch set to not-unlockable.
Factory reset protection works by forcing you to validate that you are the owner of the gooble account previously registered as owner of the device. It can be trivially bypassed as long as the "allow oem unlocking" flag is set to true, or the device has a 3rd party OS key installed, such as from grapheneos.
Also, having the device REPORTED as stolen if it is, will make it unable to connect to a cellular network, which pretty effectively makes it worthless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not all of this is really right on the head.
tarun0​
FRP is VERY easy to bypass. Takes me about 2 minutes on Android 13 Jan 2022 update on 7 Pro, 7, 6a, 6 pro, 6, 5a, 5, 4a 5g and the 4a. The data is wiped though, so it at least can't have data stolen, but the FRP is more like a fence with a gate that you can just reach the other side to unlock with a paper clip lol
As far as getting past lock screen, there's USB plug-in's that if a true back actor wanted to get into the phone, it bypasses usb debugging and can force test thousands of pins and patterns per minute without flagging the maximum attempt trigger. But again, what's the chance of a phone getting stolen by someone with that level of knowledge? 90% of phone thieves take it, run and sell it quick flip.
Also, with a custom Android recovery, adb commands are possible, so if the device is rooted with a custom recovery, there's ways to extract the lock screen file where its stored and use it. I don't think the recoveries based on LineageOS can do this, but TWRP definitely can as I've done it personally. So far there's no twrp for any android 13 device to my knowledge. Even the android 12 variants of twrp are shotty and barely function.
Dirty flashing a rom will also remove any passcode generally on a phone. and make data accessible.
Reporting it stolen only goes so far. You can spoof the IMEI if rooted or straight up change it if you have tools like MiracleBox
Long story short, an unlocked bootloader and a rooted android device make the device very insecure. The only roms out there that let you re-lock the bootloader after flashing the rom are Graphene and CalyxOS. And I really don't recommend calyx. Its a pile of ****. Don't root graphene either, as you'll have to leave the bootloader unlocked

TechX1991 said:
Dirty flashing a rom will also remove any passcode generally on a phone. and make data accessible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
we are talking about FBE encryption, not old FDE encryption with default_password. do not claim what you haven't tested yourself. FBE is simply secure in BFU state. also against bruteforce as gatekeeper lives in TEE. after 140 attempts the timeout has increased to 1 day.
kindly read about how FBE works
https://android.stackexchange.com/a/241688