By During their time scoping out the Samsung Galaxy S II, the folks over at BGR managed to uncover a glaring security flaw involving the phones lock screen. If the handset is set with a pin or pattern lock, bypassing the phone’s password is as simple as letting the lock screen timeout and then waking the phone. The protected lockscreen gives way to the standard slide-to-unlock version. The video below demonstrates the issue.
Without our own device to verify the flaw on, we have to go off of what we are shown here. There is a distinct possibility that this problem may be limited to a small sliver of handsets, and it seems like the sort of thing that will be easily (and quickly) fixed with an OTA update.
[via BGR]
Easy way around that. Just add a app locker and lock all of the important apps. I use that also. I don’t worry about the phones security lockscreen.
I despise BGR very much.
a BREAKING news article about a lockscreen bug and to make it worse, tells them how to do this which can be abused by other people until Samsung and AT&T push an update out over the air.
So you’d rather censor news? I’d rather they not take months to fix it
They could of submitted the flaw to Samsung or AT&T themselves
like someone said, if an ATM had a security flaw that allowed you to withdraw free money, do you tell the bank owners or show how to do it on the internet :|
And what about the people who are considering the purchase of this phone. Do you keep silent about how easy this is and let them make a purchase they’ll regret, or inform the shopper so they can make a better informed decision?
It’s could “have,” not “of.”
Ummm… well the banks would find out eventually and im broke sooooo err uh yeahhhh
At least this was found before the official release on Oct. 2nd. Hopefully they can push out an update ASAP.
Just tested on my SGS2 (unbranded nordic rom). Don’t got the bug.
As per the title “Security Flaw Could Render **AT&T’s** Galaxy S II Lockscreen Useless”…
Maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere in the world (which is bigger than the US, in case you wondered), might be wondering if the issue also affected other Samsung Galaxy S 2 devices, or would think it’s the same software (and thereby the same flaw) on AT&T branded as well as unbranded SGS2 devices.
Well, the European GS2 has been out for at least a half year and no problems (of this sort) have been found (to my knowledge, or else it would have been reported on). And if you bothered to read the source link (which generally has more specific info), you would read “We have confirmed that the flaw exists on AT&T’s Galaxy S II and not on Sprint’s Galaxy S II, Epic Touch 4G…”.
I think that without that specific info in the text most people would read it as the Galaxy SII in general had this problem.
Wonder if widget locker fixes this.
If you happened to flash between ROMs and did a data restore, you have to reapply the lockscreen sometimes or this will happen.
Might not be the same bug thou
Your friend’s mom is stripping for money on her computer. congrats
I use no lock to get rid of the lock screen anyhow. Can’t stand lock screens.
My intrenational GS2 does not do this!!!!!
Would this happen if the manufacturers weren’t trying to be software developers and putting their own ugly interfaces onto an otherwise very nice operating system? Probably not.
I’m sure that Android has its own handful of bugs, but there is no reason to add to it by having Motorola (the worst), HTC, Samsung, LG, etc trying to put their own software on top of it.