MITRE ATT&CKsub-technique

T1626.001 Device Administrator Permissions

Published 2022-04-01 Modified 2026-05-12 Official page ↗
Domain
mobile
Tactics
Privilege Escalation
Platforms
Android
Version
1.1
Created
2022-04-01

Description

Adversaries may abuse Android’s device administration API to obtain a higher degree of control over the device. By abusing the API, adversaries can perform several nefarious actions, such as resetting the device’s password for Endpoint Denial of Service, factory resetting the device for File Deletion and to delete any traces of the malware, disabling all the device’s cameras, or to make it more difficult to uninstall the app. Device administrators must be approved by the user at runtime, with a system popup showing which actions have been requested by the app. In conjunction with other techniques, such as Input Injection, an app can programmatically grant itself administrator permissions without any user input.

Related

Subtechnique of · MITRE ATT&CK (1)

  • T1626 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism technique

Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)

  • TA0029 Privilege Escalation tactic

Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (2)

  • M1011 User Guidance mitigation
  • M1006 Use Recent OS Version mitigation

Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · uses (9)

  • S9004 Crocodilus software (malware)
  • S1082 Sunbird software (malware)
  • S1077 Hornbill software (malware)
  • S1061 AbstractEmu software (malware)
  • S0539 Red Alert 2.0 software (malware)
  • S0540 Asacub software (malware)
  • S0536 GPlayed software (malware)
  • S0522 Exobot software (malware)
  • S0318 XLoader for Android software (malware)

References