Is the eSIM preserved after a wipe by a thief?

bobbed859

In a scenario where a thief steals a Google Pixel phone with Grapheneos, then reboots it into recovery mode, and finally does a "wipe", is the eSIM preserved?

If so, will the thief be able to receive new calls and SMS after the factory reset?

Oggyo

I haven't done a manual factory reset for a long time but I believe I saw a manual selection to include eSIM erase during the procedure.
Some info here, but not directly connected to your question - Does GrapheneOS provide Factory Reset Protection?.

Note that if you set a Duress PIN/Password, then the eSIM will be wiped automatically and the thief will not be able to receive new calls and SMS after the factory reset.

bobbed859

Oggyo I haven't done a manual factory reset for a long time but I believe I saw a manual selection to include eSIM erase during the procedure.

Yes but that's probably when doing the factory reset from the settings menu, I'm asking about the reboot in recovery mode and then the wipe.

bobbed859

I respond to myself so everybody can know the results of my "experiment".

I've done the test with a pixel 6a, and the response is yes, the eSim is preserved after a factory reset through recovery mode.

So, this is very important: if you don't have activated the "SIM lock" option, a thief that makes a factory reset through recovery mode will have immediate access to your future calls and SMS, and this can be very dangerous if you have to receive SMS with sensitive data or related to two authentication systems.

The steps to reproduce it are:

Enter to recovery mode. Wipe the device.
Configure GrapheneOS from scratch.
Enable eSIM and reboot.
Now you have the eSIM preserved and you can use it.

By the way, when doing the factory reset I got this message:

—- Wiping data
ERROR:
recovery: [libfs_mgr] Unable to enable ext4 verity
on /dev/b10ck/p1atform/14700000.ufs/by-name/metadata because
/system/bin/tune2fs is missing

[deleted]

bobbed859 THX for your engagement! Makes you stand out by actually doing your own research! Cheers.