I just had an encounter of the turd kind with a banking app that I want to share.
I’m in the process of migrating to a new degoogled phone (GrapheneOS) and upon installing the app in question via Aurora Store, it gave me an error message, saying it had not been installed from a “trustworthy” source. It would, therefore, refuse to start and tell me to install it from the Play Store. (For anyone curious: it’s the Consorsbank app, and the issue is well-known at this point.)
In spite of being on GOS, I was faced with the prospect of
- installing Play Services Framework (sandboxed or not, I don’t want that shit)
- installing the Play Store (sandboxed or not, I don’t want that shit)
- logging in to the Play Store (I definitely don’t want that shit!)
only to run a damn app.
I eventually used USB-debugging and ADB to trick the app into thinking it had been installed from the Play Store.
So even though everything is running fine now, this doesn’t feel like a victory. For the first time in a long while, I feel I have come head to head with a piece of tech that was not just maladapted for my janky way of running things and just needed some tinkering. This was outright malicious, refusing operation and trying to force me to use services I want nothing to do with. It only gave me the option to either give in or walk away and stop using their services. Now, I don’t mind doing that for non-essential things. I don’t have big tech-owned messengers, I don’t have social media (save Lemmy) and all the other stuff people these days feel they cannot live without.
Banking, however, is a different kind of beast. Banking is essential. Second factor authentication is usually done via apps these days. And if this kind of thing becomes normal for banking apps, and Google keeps locking down Android so hacks like the above won’t be accessible any more, things are looking grim.
Tonight has left me with more questions than answers. Is Android still the ‘right’ ecosystem? What are the alternatives if this thing becomes more wide-spread? How do we combat this? Put pressure on banks to keep technologies open? Revert to physical second factor generators, until those become phased out by banks as well?
I’ve been having similar turd-kind encounters with bank apps even within Android. I use the egregious Heliboard from F-droid, and my bank app refused to start because I use an “untrusted keyboard” – funny as it’s way more trustworthy that Gboard or Microslop board apps. Turns out the apps of all banks in my country are like that. So now I simply access the bank via the browser instead. Fuck their apps.
But I understand that the browser solution may not work for everyone :(
Partly this problem comes from incompetence of the app’s developers, partly for shifting responsibility: it seems to me that they let Play Store do the checks, so if any hacking happens they can blame Play Store. And there’s also the modern motto: “if you want to make an app secure, make it unusable”. Even better I’d then say “don’t make it at all”! – there, security-problem fully solved.
Put pressure on banks would be best. Possibly one could also play a “disability” card: I must use such-and-such app or OS owing to visual impairment, say. Or collect signatures for a petition… but I imagine we’re a very small minority.
As a protest in my case I changed bank a couple of times.
But thank you for the USB-ADB tip! I’ll use it when I switch to GrapheneOS.
Wow. Here I was thinking I had come across a particularly nasty piece of fuckery. But then you came along with that keyboard story.
That said, I can imagine how “checking for the ‘wrong’ keyboard’” (or the wrong install method, in my case) came into being: somebody installed a keyboard (or a malware-injected APK) which turned out to be a keylogger, lost their funds, and, instead of owning up to their own mistakes, blamed the company for it. Now everyone gets to “enjoy” the fallout because the company feels it needs to “protect” the rest of us dumb-dumbs from impaling ourselves with our own software choices - trading freedom for a false sense of security.
I’d have gone that route if I could. The trouble is: every single bank here uses a proprietary app for 2FA, meaning: I cannot log in via the browser without an app.
Precisely! This is not about users’ security. This is about corporate liability, and hence deserves pushback.
Not so sure about the keylogger argument because every banking app rely on their own pad for entering the pin/password, so there is nothing to log.
“I use the egregious Heliboard from F-droid, and my bank app refused to start because I use an “untrusted keyboard””
…I’m sorry, but what the hell?! What banking app has enough access to a user’s system that they’re not only able to detect the keyboard being used, but label in as “untrustworthy”?! Genuinely terrifying shit! Imagine if banks had the power to determine your access to your funds based on OTHER APPS you have on your phone? They already do that with purchases, and that’s disturbing enough.
That’s unfortunately true. Banking apps can also see what accessibility apps are running. My banking app for example will not start if KDE Connect is configured with maximum accessibility access so that it can remote input and share screen.
Never thought to consider that an app can know what keyboard is in use! I can imagine that not going well if someone is using a niche input method for accessibility.
I’d agree, the day my bank stops offering basic functions through the browser is the day I switch banks.
Indeed I wonder if that kind of keyboard check is even legal - personally I feel it as a breach of my privacy, none of their fucking business what kind of input method I use. (If anyone here is knowledgeable about such matters, please let me know!)