Help Security on damaged phone

Meh · Apr 2, 2012

Hey all. Sorry I have posted this elsewhere buy not had a response.

My Desire S packed up. Totally died. It got sent off for repair without me being able to wipe it and I got a new phone in it's place.

How secure should my data be? There were no personal texts or anything, but will my Google account be safe? Facebook etc?

If it's booted with no sim or a different sim it should ask for my Google password shouldn't it? So I assume it should be ok. What does the phone do if the password can't be provided?

If changed the Google password just to be safe, but what about Facebook, eBay etc?

Cheers.

notebook · Apr 2, 2012

It's a good question.

If the workshop where your phone was sent to is good with security and confidentiality, then they will wipe or destroy the onboard ROM. But who knows what they do?!

The SIM has no bearing on your Google account password. If the ROM can be resurrected, then technically, if you've set up 'Accounts & sync' with your Google and Facebook account information (as well as others), then anyone with that ROM can automatically log in to your accounts. If you've set up a screen lock then that may act as an additional barrier, but it may be possible these things can be hacked, although I don't know of any specific hack, like Windows password recovery tools/hacks.

But, and here's the kicker, if your ROM was rooted or could be rooted, then anyone can access your account passwords kept in data/system/accounts.db as it's a plain text file! (See here for more.)

So, if in doubt, change the passwords on the web accounts that you have on your phone.

FoX777 · Apr 3, 2012

That's why I use 2 step verification....

It allows for and SMS/generated code on the phone to log into gmail on the PC (like banking)

On the phone side you create individual codes to access all google linked features, these codes are one time codes, which you can remove as you wish.

So if your phone gets stolen all you do is delete that password linked to the stolen phone and the link is gone for ever. Not the data.

Meh · Apr 4, 2012

Many thanks for your replies. I've changed all my passwords just to be sure.

Notebook - whenever I booted my phone with a different sim in (or no sim) it asks for my Google password. I assume that if that can't be provided then the phone won't allow access to my accounts etc? Is that not the case?

notebook · Apr 5, 2012

@Meh

I've played around with a number of different Desire S phones belonging to colleagues and have never come across the phone requesting a Google password when the SIM is swapped or when it's without a SIM - either when it's in a default security setting or via any other standard security setting on the phone with Sense 2.3 or 3.0. (And I guess you're not referring to the SIM card lock PIN.)

So not knowing anything about the Google password/SIM thing you're asking about, I have no idea how secure your phone will be with it.

But assuming it operates in a similar way to a screen lock, then it will add a level of security to your unrooted phone. No one will be able to gain access to your phone by the touch screen alone, unless they know or can guess your password. However, see the 'root' security issue I mentioned above as rooting bypasses the Android security system.

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Help Security on damaged phone

Meh

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notebook

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FoX777

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Meh

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notebook

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