Root Detection

Detecting that an app runs on a rooted device is a key RASP feature. An Android device that has been rooted gives users and apps higher privileges and enables them to perform otherwise restricted actions. Such a device does not provide a secure environment for a production app because device users or other apps can affect the application runtime in an unexpected way, potentially compromising its integrity.

Malwarelytics for Android is able to detect that the app is running on a rooted device and can be configured to terminate the app in such a case.

Configuration

This feature can be configured during the Malwarelytics initialization phase:

val raspConfig = RaspConfig.Builder()
    .root(RootDetectionConfig)
    // configuration of other RASP features
    .build()

Available values of RootDetectionConfig:

Root detection defaults to RootDetectionConfig.Notify.

List of available parameters for some config values:

Usage

After initialization, the rooted device detection feature can be accessed via RaspManager. This can be used to register an observer or to trigger a manual root detection check.

Registering an Observer

Rooted device detection can trigger a certain action. To achieve that, an observer needs to be configured and registered.

Observer configuration:

val raspObserver = object : RaspObserver {
    override fun onRootDetected(rootDetection: RootDetection) {
        // handle root detection
    }
    // handle detection of other RASP features
}

The observer can be registered in RaspManager. When it is no longer needed, it can be unregistered again.

raspManager.registerRaspObserver(raspObserver)
raspManager.unregisterRaspObserver(raspObserver)

Triggering a Manual Check

Rooted device detection check can be triggered manually in RaspManager. Two methods are available – isDeviceRooted() gives a simple boolean answer, whereas getRootDetection() provides more details.

val rootDetection = raspManager.getRootDetection()
val isRooted = raspManager.isDeviceRooted()