Practical Mobile Forensics - Fourth Edition

Rooting an Android device

We will now look at the different methods available to root an Android device. The primary factor that influences your choice of method is whether the underlying boot loader is locked or unlocked. Gaining root access on a device with an unlocked boot loader is very easy, while gaining root access to a device with a locked boot loader is not so straightforward, which means that unlocking your Android phone’s bootloader is often the first step to rooting and flashing custom ROMs. This can be done either through fastboot mode (discussed in earlier sections) or by following a vendor-specific boot loader unlock procedure. Once the device bootloader is unlocked, the next step is to copy the su binary and grant it executable ...