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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Maps and signal is like they were trying to contact somebody and see where you lived to return the phone. Banking is weird since you can’t do anything without biometric anyway.
I think you got it backwards - OP was checking those apps to see if they had been accessednvm I got it backwards
They mentioned checking app usage, so the person who found the phone opened those apps
Yeah. They were accessed while the phone was lost
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.
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
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.
Unrelated. Have you considered using a work profile?
That way you can have two factor authentication when unlocking your phone. You could use a PIN code for the main unlock, and a biometric for apps in the work profile. That way you would have to have both something you are, and something you know.
How do you lock your work profile?
Settings, security, more security settings:
Under work profile and security:
Disable - use one lock for work profile and device screen
Configure - work profile lock, use a different code, only needed at boot time.
Enroll finger prints for biometric unlock.
