Bypass Record
Pre-OS Boot × Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (canoe) ABL
A publicly-reported instance of Pre-OS Boot bypassing Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (canoe) ABL, recorded with its original source. Factual record; no assessment of any specific deployment.
Mechanism
The tool modifies the ABL image to replace efisp references, hardcode boot state checks, and spoof androidboot.vbmeta.device_state as 'locked'. The patched ABL is flashed to the efisp partition, which loads early in boot without signature verification. The TEE derives boot state from ABL, so the spoofed locked state passes hardware attestation, granting STRONG Play Integrity and Widevine L1.
Detection & mitigation
Monitor device integrity attestation results for anomalies such as mismatches between reported boot state and other hardware-backed signals (e.g., verified boot state, root of trust). Enforce hardware-backed attestation on the server side and correlate with known-good device profiles; deploy tamper-resistant bootloaders with verified boot chains to prevent unauthorized ABL modifications.
This is a record of a publicly-reported event, not an assessment of any specific organization's deployment. Detection and mitigation notes are drawn from the cited source. Where the source is silent, fields are omitted.