T1626.001: Device Administrator Permissions
Essential information
- MITRE technique ID
T1626.001- Confidence
- 100/100
- Revoked
- No
- Published
- 01/04/2022 17:59
- Modified
- 27/03/2026 01:41
- Author / Source
- The MITRE Corporation
Platforms
android
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](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1642), factory resetting the device for [File Deletion](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1630/002) 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](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1516), an app can programmatically grant itself administrator permissions without any user input.
Kill chain phases
| Kill chain | Phase |
|---|---|
| mitre-mobile-attack | privilege-escalation |
Marking (TLP)
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