Factory reset & malwares

Pasha_Tech

Hello.

In theory, if my phone had physical access and someone was able to install spy software there. Will a full factory reset disable this malware?

Thanks

ryrona

Pasha_Tech If you do a secure factory reset, yes, it should guarantee the malware is removed. Reboot your phone by holding power button for at least 30 seconds. This is a hard reboot, so a malware cannot prevent it or fake it. Hold volume down too so you enter the fastboot bootloader interface instead of booting the operating system again. At this point, your phone should be in a guaranteed trusted state, as the bootloader is verified and cannot be replaced, and no unverifiable user data is loaded. Select Recovery. If I remember correctly, here you need to press power button + volume up to get a menu. From that menu, select Factory reset. This will destroy all user data. Only properly signed and verifiable operating system data and firmware will remain. As a last step, verify the hash that is displayed when the phone boots, to be sure the operating system itself hasn't been replaced.

JW10233

It depends in the level oft access the threat actor has. If he has high privileges that allow him to modify the system itself while preserving AVB, a factory reset does not affect the malware as it is not stored in one of the partitions that get formatted during a factory reset. If that is not the case, a factory reset is enough. If you are not sure try reflashing Graphene. That will definitely get rid of it.