Motorola Droid 2 Flaw Allowing Voice Actions Even When Phone is in Locked State [Update: Droid X Too]

by Kevin Krause on October 15th, 2010 at 3:39 pm

Now here is a sort of bizarre though still very troubling security flaw surfacing for the Motorola DROID 2: With the phone in its locked state and resting at the passcode entry screen, holding the search softkey (or keyboard key) for four seconds and then following with a voice command will still respond by proceeding to complete the action requested. The phone will not respond with any sort of prompt indicating that it is listening for Voice Actions, but lo and behold asking the phone to ring a number will indeed pull up the dialer and place the call.

The issue cannot be replicated in other devices carrying Android 2.2, so it seems to be relegated to specifically the Droid 2 and its specific iteration of MotoBlur. Check out the following video to see the exploit in action.

[UPDATE]: DroidLife is reporting that the Motorola DROID X is also susceptible to the same issue. Looks like no Android 2.2 device with the latest iteration of [not] MotoBlur is safe from lockscreen voice dialing.

[via BGR]

In the news:

Motorola DROID 2

4 / 5 stars

Nate
oO…he made the video with an i*hone…
strange bug, anyway.
thegreattaurus
SEEMS LIKE A FEATURE TO ME
Keller
The htc glacier wont have this bug
Sara
It doesn’t matter what make or model phone you have, there will always be a bug or some sort that will eventually be discovered.
tsanuri
Yes all phones have bugs but this is a big security flaw.
Darkseider
This isn’t a security flaw it is a BLUR FLAW. Phones running vanilla android, Droid, N1 and those with Sense don’t have this issue. Welcome to Blur! Moto do everyone a favor and can Blur give us all Vanilla Android and then unlock your damned bootloaders so in case something like this OR the kernel bug that kills the DX using Real HDMI can be squashed by real Android devs, read as the Dev Community, NOT Failorola engineers.
tsanuri
@darkscieder
Where it is a problem within blur that does not change the fact that it is a security flaw.
ToastnJam
How is it a security flaw? It only happens when the user has the phone, it doesn’t happen remotely. It’s a flaw yes, but hardly a security flaw.
elijahblake
ha that’s kinda neat.. Although I can speak from EXPERIENCE, sometimes when you call someone on Accident and don’t know it, things can turn out BAD!!!
ToastnJam
my mistake! I read that incorrectly. Didn’t realize anyone that has your phone can access this feature. Still, how often does someone else have your phone, other than a family member. Still don’t see it as being a major security flaw. Definately something to fix though.
Neto
Keller i do hope that one day when/if the glacier comes out it turns out to be the biggest piece of electronic shit that was ever conceived. just so we can see the youtube video of you dying in a fire, a giant mouse trap or just filleting yourself with a mach 3 razor. why must you pollute EVERY SINGLE FUCKING NEWS ARTICLE with your garbage. just die already you fucking troll LOL
Magnus
what do you think what is HTC Glacier? you guys think Glacier is possible Sidekick Twist?
there rumor abt that.. I hopeful!
Kaz
yeah, this new version of blur is just god-awful…
http://n/a BuLLg0d
This must be how I accidentally called my mother the other day!
MotoBad
Motoblur SUCKS and eFuse SUCKS!
Stop ruining perfectly good phones by putting your terrible software on it and locking them down. Stop punishing your users Motorola or you WILL lose business. Look at how popular the original Droid was. It wasn’t locked down at all.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m never buying another phone from Motorola and I find myself wishing I had gotten an HTC phone instead. I might just sell my Droid 2 and get a HTC Merge instead.
Tom Ackerman
“Stop punishing your users Motorola or you WILL lose business.”
Case in point: I ordered a Droid X to replace my current phone, and discovered shortly afterward that it’s designed to prevent user customization, contrary to the spirit of Android. So I returned it.
I’ll probably get a Galaxy S or the latest from HTC instead.
Droid-
WOW, I am glad I have the original Droid! I was ticked off when the Droid 2 & X came out, cause I have another year on my contract. But now I am happy after reading what they did to those new phones.