0 click exploit protection

[arianwen27]

Heyo all. I wanted to write a little bit about a feature that most never know about but is always protecting your device. I believe it's only on the S series but some A series phones might have it too. It's deep within one ui and android so I'd class this as a device feature not a software feature.

So, what's this about? 

(There has been no reports of samsung devices ever being vulnerable, this started with iphones)

A while ago, the security community were shocked to find iphones that had malware running on them. After some analysis, it was found that a 0 click exploit existed. 

That meaning, someone could send a text to the phone, on receipt of that text, the malware runs and enters the device. No user input. (It was a special image, when the phone tried to display it, a bug triggered causing access)

This is very very bad. So bad, apple made a feature called "blast door". Any message sent to the device gets isolated and examined, then the user can view it. So if some special malware message is received, it won't infect the device.

Where does samsung come into this?

While samsung has had no known infections from this attack method (possibly due to knox). They decided it would be best to add extra protection in place just in case. They created message sandboxing. This contains every image received in a messaging app. So not just texts, WhatsApp, telegram and other apps too. 

Once the phone has examined the image and deemed it safe, it will be shown. If someone happens to send you an image that's bad, the phone detects and blocks it.

Originally, this was hidden away in developer settings. At the very bottom an option to disable it appeared. So most people never knew it was silently protecting their device. As of current, auto blocker being on prevents message sandboxing being disabled, ensuring people stay safe. It is always on by default on all supported devices. I believe it works on all knox phones but I can't check.

So while no Samsung device has been known to be infected, there's now a whole system in place to guard against malicious messages being sent to your device.

The extra protection the S series and knox offers compared to other android phones is just incredible. I really appreciate the effort put into the security on these devices.

[arianwen27]

I kinda doubt the hardware backdoor thing.

If a hardware backdoor existed, why do the US government try to sue Apple when more device protection features are added?

My example being when an iPhone hasn't been touched for a few days, it reboots. This means phones in police evidence lockers need to be cracked within a few days else they fully lock. Police were not happy about this.

The UK government also used legal powers to force disable end to end encryption on iphones. If a backdoor existed, why would they need to use legal powers to force apple to disable their security?

Governments have backdoors, but they aren't intentional. They use exploits to break into phones.

Another example, when the trump ear event happened. The NSA had to wait for a company to update their phone cracking tool. They didn't use a backdoor to get into it, they used an exploit.

Oh and to kinda say possibly an obvious thing. If a hardware backdoor existed, someone would have found it by now. A backdoor can be opened by anyone with enough effort, some hacker or other country would have figured it out by now

[nobodyspecialnow]

You think apple protects you, they already scan and copy every photo on your phone, even ones you don't keep, hardware is the key to spying on phones that governments use, as for apple arguments with government agencies that's just public relations, of course they do they days of total privacy is gone. Even on Linux computers and phones.
Buy a new phone, switch it on without Internet, or mobile data or sim card your phone automatically starts pinging and sending out data. That's before you even set it up. If your a target of a three letter agency they will find you whatever you do, even on the dark Web. It's normally people who live outside countries that don't cooperate with western countries that are hard to bring to justice. How do you think Israel exploded phones on suspected terrorist leaders.
Hardware. A signal sent can. Do anything. Especially if used by CIA or similar. And all phone companies cooperate with western countries secret services. No phone is safe not even iphones. Not from governments.

[nobodyspecialnow]

IPhone crash detection. Yeah location Indicator init. Wherever you go apple knows.
And if they know so does any western government your in.

[arianwen27]

I think you've gone down some conspiracy rabbit hole. As most of the things you're now saying can be easily proven to be not true... I'm not going to debunk you further as I know it'll never end lol

[nobodyspecialnow]

No not conspiracy just no one can protect themselves from governments especially in China or western countries. Phones are made that way. Sad our governments don't trust it's people and spend tens of billions monitoring them. Every year. It's hackers we need to worry about. forget governments that's a done deal