Permissions required by App Shielding added to AndroidManifest

For certain configurations and elements of the SDK, App Shielding requires specific permissions for the application. This article describes which permissions are added by the Shielding Tool, and the background for the need for these permissions.

Check Untrusted Installers, and Check Rooting

If you enable the Check untrusted installer and/or Check rooting configuration options, and declare that Google Play granted the QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission, the Shielding Tool adds the following permission to the app:

• android.permission.QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES

For the details of the Query All Packages Permission configuration option and the additional notes on it in Configuration options for Android.

Screen reader protection

This permission is used by App Shielding to query ApplicationInfo, PackageInfo, and SigningInfo for the packages that are installed. App Shielding uses that data to determine if the package has an untrusted installer.

For more information, see Untrusted installer.

Rooting check

In addition, rooting check will not be determining the device’s status by checking rooting applications. Other rooting checks will still be executed.

For more information, see Rooting.

Activity Guard

For applications that are using Activity Guard, the Shielding Tool will add the following permission to the app:

• android.permission.REORDER_TASKS to the app

This permission is added to have a control over tasks and reorder the tasks after Guard Activity has finished with its check. The reasoning behind this is that Guard Activity will always run as only one activity in its own task. Afterwards, it will bring the main task of the application to the front which will require ordering.

The permission is added automatically to the application if the check, features, or version conditions are met.

For more information, see Activity Guard.

Overlay Blocking

For applications that target Android 12 (API level 31) or later and use the Block non-system overlays option, the Shielding Tool adds the following permission to the app:

• android.permission.HIDE_OVERLAY_WINDOWS

This permission allows App Shielding to block and remove non-system overlays when the protected app is running.

For more information, see Tapjacking.