Bug: Device passcode lock will sometimes be bypassed when connecting to a PC with USB
asked 2014-01-13 18:11:28 +0300
I discovered this bug a couple of days ago and asked about this on #jollamobile yesterday. Some people tried to reproduce it and at least one person on the channel told me that they could see the same behavior when testing. I also asked Stskeeps for thoughts on this and he suggested that I should create a report here.
So here's what I did:
- I had the device passcode lock enabled and the delay set to 5 minutes.
- I locked/put the device to sleep and waited over 5 minutes (so that it should ask for a passcode).
- I connected the device to a PC with USB straight from sleep (screen off).
What I expected to happen:
When the device is connected, it asks for the passcode before doing anything.
What happens instead (not always):
The device wakes up and asks for the connection method on the homescreen, bypassing the passcode lock and giving the potential thief access to use the phone and browse files through the USB connection or the phone itself.
I connected my device straight from sleep (screen off) but I don't know if that matters. I am also not sure if the delay setting is crucial here, the bug might also happen when the delay is not enabled. When it happened to me, I had the delay enabled and at 5 minutes.
I tested this multiple times and I couldn't always reproduce the bug. It has still happened to me at least 5 times so I'm quite sure that it's not me failing at something. To make sure, at some point I even waited more than 10 minutes before trying to connect it to a PC with USB, so that it would be clear that the device should ask for a passcode. It still just bypassed the passcode and asked for the connection method on the homescreen.
If I am not mistaken here and this bug really exists, I think it's quite serious and it would be nice if more people would try to reproduce it and we could get this squashed.
