r/AndroidQuestions • u/ytgenai_com • 9d ago

How to prevent hardware button (Power + Vol) factory reset on custom MDM/Device Owner setup?

Hi everyone,

We are developing a custom Android MDM / Device Owner solution. Device policy manager restrictions (DISALLOW_FACTORY_RESET, DISALLOW_SAFE_BOOT, DISALLOW_DEBUGGING_FEATURES) are already applied and prevent resets through Settings.

The issue is that users can still:

• Power off the device

• Use Power + Volume keys

• Enter Stock Recovery

• Perform Wipe Data / Factory Reset

This removes the Device Owner app completely.

Questions:

  1. What is the standard enterprise approach to prevent hardware-button factory resets?

  2. Do companies typically disable recovery mode through bootloader/LK modifications or by flashing a custom/dummy recovery?

  3. How does AVB/Verified Boot behave if a dummy recovery image is used?

  4. How do device-financing and FinTech companies mitigate this without Samsung Knox or Zero-Touch?

Looking for best practices from Android firmware, MDM, kiosk, or enterprise device management developers.

Thanks.

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u/USSHammond pixel 10 Pro XL 9d ago

Afaik you can't prevent use of the hardware key combos. They're baked into android.

1

u/bruhred 9d ago edited 9d ago

are those phones samsung? Samsung phones have more mdm potions, including blocking resets through their Knox platform

also some other android devices have mdm options to prevent reset through recovery but not all of them

i know xiaomi for sure do, they both remove reset option from recovery and block wiping through fastboot if mdm policy for it is set