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by riedel 200 days ago
Why would you want security, if you get 'play integrity' for phones that received no updates since 2 years. Google's current security practices are more than dubious IMHO. Now they are not releasing any source for security patches for 3 month, to 'protect' vendors that are too slow updating. As if there is no chance for bad actors to reverse engineer those patch sets.
2 comments
homebrewer 200 days ago
I have the strongest level of "Play Integrity" on a Xiaomi phone that hasn't received any updates since the beginning of 2020. Google Pay and co work fine. It makes sense when you remember that PI is not about security at all, that's just an excuse.
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chii 199 days ago
The "integrity" refers to googles bottomline!
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ycombinatrix 199 days ago
Play Integrity is just spyware - it does not provide any degree of security.
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riedel 199 days ago
Sorry for my irony. While I do not think it is spyware on itself, it sure is a way to force vendors to bundle spyware.
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yaro330 199 days ago
Elaborate please. PI on its own is just an insurance API for banking and similar apps to ensure that they can do secure compute on the device. It can also be used to check if the device that the app is running on is a genuine Android device, since no VMs or custom ROMs can pass hardware integrity.
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subscribed 199 days ago
Well, only it isn't.

Very old, unpatched and rooted devices can fairly easily pass device integrity check.

It primarily assures the software vendor that the phone is running Google buttplug in the privileged mode.

Remember, handsets running on ANCIENT versions of Android with no patches for years. Whilst seems to be important to raise under the Forbes article (rightly) fussing about a couple of zero-days.

"Custom roms" (whatever that means) can easily spoof the checks in the specific situation (mainly hardware that allows for several things).

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riedel 199 days ago
What sense is does it make to certify an insecure device that may be subject to all kinds of remote exploits and elevated code execution as 'unmodified'. The argument of the banks is: the device is insecure (even with the latest patches). We all know the whole compliance is a bit more complex, so it might make sense on that level...
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