Droid security flaw makes lock screen a mere inconvenience for evil-doers
By Chris Ziegler 
posted January 11th 2010 3:49PM
posted January 11th 2010 3:49PM
You might recall Apple having a hard time keeping its lock screen locked at one point, and it looks like we've got a common theme brewing here now that Android's suffering from the same drama. Turns out that Android 2.0.1 -- the build currently deployed on the Droid -- suffers from a flaw whereby you can back out to a locked phone's home screen simply by pressing the Back button after accepting an incoming call. Of course, you'd either have to know a phone's number or wait for a call to actually take advantage of this, but we'd argue that it's a pretty low barrier of entry. The bright side of the story, we suppose, is that the phone goes back to being locked as soon as the call ends, but then again it doesn't take much time to peep your juicy emails. Google's aware of the issue, so we're thinking this'll make it into the Droid's next software update; we don't have a launch window for that just yet, so in the meantime... you know, just make sure no one ever calls you and you should be good to go.
"just make sure no one ever calls you and you should be good to go"
In all seriousness, Google Voice or similar services would allow you to simply disable call forwarding to your Droid.
If any GSM phones have this flaw, that's terrible -- yes, they boot up to a locked home screen but if you pop the SIM chip to gain the number, i guess you have earned backdoor access? Scary. Testing this on my Galaxy right now.
You know i noticed this a couple times on my g1 and thought it was an advantage... heh... I just get too many discounted phones to care since i work with cell phones. It would just be an excuse to use one of my other phones.