David Buchanan (retr0id) demonstrates that C2PA camera implementations on Android are fundamentally broken due to unpatchable hardware vulnerabilities and root privilege escalation exploits. The Pixel Camera app, which achieved C2PA's highest Assurance Level 2 rating, can be compromised to sign arbitrary files including AI-generated images as authentic photographs.

The attack exploits Android's Key Attestation and Google Play Integrity systems. Hardware fault injection attacks can root devices at low cost, and these vulnerabilities cannot be patched in existing hardware. Additionally, one-click root exploits like CVE-2026-43499 exist for fully-patched Google Pixel devices, allowing anyone to produce C2PA forgeries without hardware attacks.

When a device is rooted via exploit rather than bootloader unlocking, attestation mechanisms cannot detect the compromise. The bootloader remains locked, AVB keys are unmodified, and the device appears to run the latest security update. Google's servers then provision C2PA keys to compromised devices. While keys remain protected in Strong Box hardware (Titan M2 on newer Pixels), the root compromise allows malicious apps to request signatures on arbitrary data.

Buchanan provided proof-of-concept forgeries including an AI-generated image verified as a real Pixel photograph and a YouTube video marked as "captured with a camera." Google reportedly removed the camera capture label from the video description. Apple is rumored to be developing its own provenance solution, which Buchanan suggests may shift attacks to the optical domain.