this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024

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I'm this close to visiting my "local" branch for all my banking. (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm lucky my banking app works (GrapheneOS), as it's now requiring 2FA with the app anytime I login on the browser. Can't use an actually secure form like TOTP. At least they now allow passwords over 8 characters (yes, serious).

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What are the security issues? Rooted just means the potential to give trusted apps root access. Of course, if you give an app root access that you trust but is then abusing that trust and being malicious, yes it's a security issue. But if you don't do that, the simple fact of having a rooted phone should have no security change in any way. (Ok, except for potential bugs in Magisk/su or whatever)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The whole issue revolves around the fact Google is presuming a device is compromised or being used for illicit shit simply because root access is possible. If they put in effort to detect/prevent the actual problems they're concerned about, this wouldn't be as big a deal. This broad punishment for simply having root access is lazy and ridiculous.

It's like if Windows apps just stopped working if they detected a local admin account. It's patently absurd to assume the ability to access anything means the device is inherently "unsafe".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

But the previous commenter talked about security issues, you're only talking about usability issues.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/comment/ji54e19/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

If you have the UI layer able to grant root access, it has root access itself and is not sandboxed. If the UI layer can grant it, an attacker gaining slight control over it has root access. An accessibility service trivially has root access. A keyboard can probably get root access, and so on. Instead of a tiny little portion of the OS having root access, a massive portion of it does.

In the verified boot threat model, an attacker controls persistent state. If you have persistent root access as a possibility then verified boot doesn't work since persistent state is entirely trusted.

A userdebug build of AOSP or GrapheneOS has a su binary and an adb root command providing root access via the Android Debug Bridge via physical access using USB. This does still significantly reduce security, particularly since ADB has a network mode that can be enabled. Most of the security model is still intact. This is not what people are referring to when they talk about rooting on Android, they are referring to granting root access to apps via the UI not using it via a shell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure whoever wrote that was talking out their ass. The fuck is "UI layer" on Android, or rather, what does it have to do with it xD

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The actual Magisk prompt that ask you if you want to give root to such app. This UI layer.

Although, i suppose it could be countered by explicitly refusing all requests or enabling a biometric confirmation

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But granting root is not done by "the UI layer", "the UI layer" is not running with root. There is no such thing as "the UI layer" as a separate entity, an app can have a UI layer as part of its architecture, but the UI is not running on its own. Just because Magisk shows you a UI for you to grant/deny a root request, that doesn't make it insecure. Nothing is able to interact with this prompt except the Android kernel/libraries itself and Magisk.

Only if you added an application as accessibility tool (or give it root) can it interact with anything within the UI. An app with a UI is generally not much different than an app on the command line.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

It still create an attack vector, as it allows a potential extra method to get access to it, in addition of potential hardware exploits that i shared to gain root. Yes, you can minimize the risks correctly, but the user is the only real barrier against it, not the software anymore. The less potential way to exploit your phone, the better it is. You shouldn't rely on thinking that such feature is fully attack-proof.