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graemepyesterday at 8:20 AM8 repliesview on HN

This sort of things happens a lot. A few years ago a British bus company put certificates in the app to sign tickets.

The HSBC UK app will not run if you have any apps installed from outside play store. I cannot log into the website without the app. Luckily all I have with them is a lightly used credit card with a low limit so I have just stopped using it and rely on paper statement.

I find it disturbing that any app can examine your device in this much detail.


Replies

robertlagrantyesterday at 10:02 AM

> I find it disturbing that any app can examine your device in this much detail.

When I did a tiny bit of Android development a few years ago, I was astonished how free the app I made was to just examine the file system. I assumed it would be like the web, where each website can have its own little SQLite database and cookie store equivalent, but that's it. I don't know if it's changed, or if it was just because I was in a "dev mode" somehow, but that was very surprising.

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ajbyesterday at 9:59 AM

You could try getting them to give you a physical security key, they used to supply them and I think still will if you can't use the app (just say it doesn't work on your phone). I have one and the website still works with it.

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White_Wolfyesterday at 5:09 PM

The HSBC app runs fine on my rooted phone with a few magisk plugins and 5 marketplaces installed and a ton of sideloaded apps.

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1317yesterday at 10:43 AM

It used to let you use it with a full-on rooted phone, it just popped up a message saying 'it's not our problem if you get robbed'

i wonder what caused the change

as others have said, you can ring them up and get a physical security key, it works for the website

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jimjambwyesterday at 5:39 PM

Do you happen to remember which bus company this was? Is there any article you can link me too as I’m quite interested in reading some more on it.

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ksp-atlasyesterday at 10:27 AM

The app works for me just fine despite having lots of non-google play apps installed, is this an Android 15 thing?

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gunianyesterday at 12:02 PM

Kind of ironic since you can't easily export data as an end user without some friction

Mindwipeyesterday at 2:05 PM

The HSBC UK app runs perfectly well on my Android phone, including full biometrics, 2FA for the website and for major functionality like transferring money.

I have at least a dozen apps installed on my phone that are not from the Play Store - a mixture of other stores (Samsung/Epic) and apps that are not from any store but I've compiled myself, or downloaded APKs directly from the developer website.

This isn't true.