I’m running Graphene on a Pixel 6. I lost it and someone opened it somehow and called two of my contacts to give it back.
I’m a bit confused how this even happened. When I got the phone back, they were going through my contacts. I checked app usage stats and they went through a banking app (not missing money), maps, signal, etc.
Is there a way to figure out how they even unlocked my phone?
Gonna need to know more. What method do you use to lock your phone? Is it rooted?
Also: did they return the phone to you, or to your friend? Could it be your friend who went through these apps?
Fingerprint and pin code. They left the phone at a store nearby and I went to pick it up
Odd suggestion, but do you still have their contact info? Could you ask them? 😄
You could also send them a small thank you gift and ask them with that, so not to make it seem like you’re accusing them of anything
It’s a reasonable request, you could say that you need to keep your phone secure for work, and while it was great that the stranger was able to get it to you, you’re following up on if there is some bug you need to look into
Unrelated, it might be good to set up a “If lost, call ____” type message. If you don’t have another number, email also works.
Yeah. Definitely setting that up now haha. They used my phone to call my contacts, so I don’t have their number
~But it whoever they called, will have it, so maybe find out which of your contacts got to know about it?~ This is a mystery that we need to solve now!
Edit: I’m dumb.
They used his phone…
Did they call a contact that was in you ICE list by chance? Most people understand how that works these days.
Is your pin simple? If you hold your phone up to the light can you see the smudge marks where your pin usually goes?
Do you have people set up as emergency contacts via the lock screen?
It might have been the fingerprint sensor. They can be fooled. Mine occasionally thinks the inside of my trouser pocket looks just like my finger.
This person is clearly well-intentioned, so I don’t think an exploit was the cause of your phone being unlocked. If they knew an exploit it’s likely that by now everything about you would’ve been compromised already, like you would’ve lost access to your accounts and all your money would be gone. This person probably unlocked your phone by using your pin code, so either it was a very common pin code, or something suggested here, like smudges on your screen revealing the pin code, or highly unlikely, they guessed your pin code. Anyway, it’s better safe than sorry so check if your OS’ been tampered with using the GrapheneOS auditor app. Even if it hasn’t, you should back up everything and factory reset it just to err on the side of caution. And in the future, use an 8-10 digit pin code with pin scrambling enabled.
100%, depending on your threat model, your device has been compromised and out of your control. You have evidence that the device was unlocked. You can no longer trust the device
Probably should change your PIN too
Was it perhaps unlocked when you lost it?
I know I’ve set my phone down unlocked a few times; particularly at work (in a warehouse).
Unless you have it set to never lock its not possible. All phones lock automatically after 30-60 seconds by default.
Unless a program is keeping the screen unlocked, like a YouTube video…
Do you frequently just leave YouTube running?
Yes, watching videos is one of the core uses of my phone. But that’s besides the point, it’s illustrative that there are apps that keep a screen unlocked.
Prevent phone from sleeping : I believe is the permission name
Curious, do you watch videos while out? How do you have the uninterrupted time?
I watch videos when I have downtime. However long that might be.
Not OP, but a lot of people use YouTube (video) as a music player. Although I would expect these people to notice the sound getting quieter/disconnecting when they moved away from the phone.
Yes that’s how YouTube works? It keeps running, it’s called video, you should check it out sometime
Is your pin something like 1234? Do you have emergency contacts set up? Do you have a setting to not lock the phone until very long? Or a smart unlock based on location or any other automation setting? An easy password hint pops up or something? Perhaps your parents forgot to mention you had a twin, who face unlocked it.
Regarding app usage, my guess is they tried to see whom to contact to give your phone back, or map history, the banking app could be a touch by mistake too.
Hey, how did you guess my secret pin!? That is a very difficult pin that I’ve had for every account for years! /s
I have that same combination on my luggage!
Do those contacts happen to be your ICE? Some phones will allow those from the emergency dialer without unlocking. Don’t know about grapheme.
Graphene has and emergency dialer, but you can’t call my contacts from it.
My guess would be that maybe it wasn’t locked in the first place or they happened to randomly try a few pin combinations & got lucky…
I think those are most likely scenarios.
Now if you’re some very important person who could be target then I wouldn’t assume what I stated previously & instead assume the worst.
My mom says I’m very important … so I’ll assume this was a state actor
But yeah, this is most likely. I changed my settings to lock faster with a longer pin
They clearly seemed to mean well. Maybe you can ask?
I imagine you may have lost your phone while it was still unlocked. It’s possible that there’s a Graphene lock screen bypass out there, but I doubt someone with such knowledge will use it to return your phone to you. Most “hacker” style lock screen bypass I imagine someone wanting to return the phone will do is checking for smudges on the PIN area of the lock screen and determining the code from that.
To combat someone unlocking your phone through smudges, you can enable PIN scrambling.
When you find out let me know
Perhaps they simply took out the sim card and inserted into another phone, giving them access to contacts (that could have been saved into the chip instead of the original phone)?
Good thinking but doesn’t explain how they accessed his apps.
That’s true. They must have gained access to the phone itself somehow.
There’s no way it’s that easy… is it??
No, it isn’t. I’ve used many Android phones over the years and none have ever defaulted to storing contacts on the SIM. SIM storage is very rudimentary, and you’d have to go out of your way to make use of it.
True , however most people do not use a pin for sim. And if you have the access a lot of info can be gain from a simcard. And even if you ain’t got access to network, any incoming traffic will go to you.
Any chance the phone was stolen and not lost? Got anyone in the family working for the government or anything unusual like that. Just a thought.
This maybe a strange suggestion. Aside from the banking app, it seems like the maps and contacts app were used with good intentions to return the phone. The person returned the phone to your friend, so clearly had good intentions. Your friend may have the phone number of the person in their call log when they called to return, unless of course they used your phone to call. If possible, have you thought about calling that person and asking about this just out of curiosity?
Yeah. It was clearly good will. Even the banking, they probably didn’t realize the app was banking (foreign bank). Signal was Molly, so they honestly were personally confused since I run KISS Launcher.
The problem is that they used my phone to call my contacts.
they honestly were personally confused because I run KISS launcher
This is what I think would happen if someone stole my laptop. Even if they got my password, they would need to figure out how to start sway, and then launch any useful application. I know there’s no security in obscurity, but I think it would be pretty funny to see someone try
Does your phone have a physical SIM and if so are there any contacts stored on it?
Yeah, but the calls were from my phone, so I think they would have to open it
They could’ve swapped the SIM to another phone though? Assuming you’re rocking a provider default PIN
But again, the calls were placed from his device, and other apps were accessed.
If someone calls you and theres a missed call notification can they just click it to call back without unlocking the phone?
Oh i didnt notice they went through other apps. Maybe they were watching you and saw you input your pin and then stole it and checked your stuff to see if they can get something useful and then returned it?
Wouldn’t a thief just factory reset and sell it, instead of taking the additional risk of returning it?
Unless they installed some spyware to try to steal more passwords, or duplicated the 2fa auth keys, or have some rmeote viewer app running now to steal text 2fa keys, or whatever else. You could steal way more in the long term than the couple of hundred that a used phone would go for.
You need the pin/password, regardless if the phone was unlocked or you fooled the biometric scanner, to wipe it. If you factory reset it by the recovery method, it will want the Google account that was last signed in before it lets you proceed. it’s been years since I had to do this, but it is a nice attempt to reduce phone thefts. (that is (might be?) nullified on graphene as it can skip the gps package, but for the usual user it’s a nice feature)
Is it possible that something else was installed to the phone? If they manage to hack it open, then potential reason to return it to you is to spy on you.
theyd have to be important, unlikely. even if this is cia shit tjey wouldnt make it obvious someone got in
Why not? Most people ITT clearly don’t seem security minded enough to even think of that as a possibility.
Ask the graphene devs.
