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Every technique
T1629.002Not expressible in SigmaMOBILE

Device Lockout

Defense EvasionAndroid

Where this stands

No Sigma rule can address this — the telemetry MITRE names has no Sigma logsource behind it.

Sigma has no logsource taxonomy for mobile platforms. MITRE's telemetry here is mobile EDR and device APIs, which no Sigma rule can address.

What the technique is

An adversary may seek to inhibit user interaction by locking the legitimate user out of the device. This is typically accomplished by requesting device administrator permissions and then locking the screen using DevicePolicyManager.lockNow(). Other novel techniques for locking the user out of the device have been observed, such as showing a persistent overlay, using carefully crafted “call” notification screens, and locking HTML pages in the foreground. These techniques can be very difficult to get around, and typically require booting the device into safe mode to uninstall the malware. Prior to Android 7, device administrators were able to reset the device lock passcode to prevent the user from unlocking the device. The release of Android 7 introduced updates that only allow device or profile owners (e.g. MDMs) to reset the device’s passcode.

Read it on attack.mitre.org

What MITRE says you would watch

  • AN1652

    Correlates (1) acquisition or presence of elevated control paths capable of forcing a lock state or blocking user interaction, (2) invocation of screen-locking or UI-denial behavior such as DevicePolicyManager lock operations, persistent overlays, accessibility-driven navigation interruption, or foreground lock-screen impersonation, and (3) immediate transition of the device into an unavailable or repeatedly re-locked state while the responsible application remains installed and active. The defender observes a causal chain where an application first gains the ability to control lock-related behavior, then forces or simulates lockout, and the device becomes unusable to the legitimate user.

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