USB Debugging: What's The Problem

[PeteCress]

I keep reading cautions that turning on USB Debugging is only for certain circumstances and that it should be turned off if those circumstances are not present.

Seems to me like USB Debugging makes the device (Galaxy Note, Android 4.2 in my case) behave as I would expect anyhow: plug it into my PC, and I see what's on the device.

What's not to like?

Functionality diffs aside, can anybody explain why I should not leave USB Debugging turned on?

 

[Harry2]

As far as I know, the phone's storage can be accessed via development tools, even with a password protected lockscreen.

Harry

 

[iowabowtech]

Yeah, someone with bad intentions and the necessary knowledge could access your storage with adb as seen here:

Note the device wasn't found until debugging was enabled. After that I could adb shell into my /system folder and beyond. This was all with a pin lock enabled on my phone.

That said, I have debugging ticked all the time. Not recommending everyone does the same necessarily, but I'd rather have a chance of interfacing my phone in a severe crisis rather than worrying about an adb expert stealing and then accessing my internal storage which frankly doesn't have much telling on it anyway.

 

[ArcDatum]

As far as I know, the phone's storage can be accessed via development tools, even with a password protected lockscreen.

Harry

Agreed. I mean you can upload an entire app through that lol.