If I rarely turn off my phone, are there any benefits to encryption still?


Question

If it becomes the case that my phone is stolen, I would like to make it as difficult as possible, if not impossible, for my data to be accessed without my permission.



I understand that Android has the ability to perform a full disk encryption on my phone. However, I also understand that the disk is decrypted on boot. Which means once the phone has successfully booted, the encryption is no longer applicable.



Personally, I tend to keep my phone booted at all times for convenience reasons. This seems to imply that my phone will therefore be decrypted at all times. Given this situation, are there still any benefits to encrypting my Phone? Additionally, would encryption help me at all in the case of theft? If not, are there any alternatives to protecting my data from theft?


Answer

As long as your phone is turned on, no matter if it is locked, in airplane mode, etc., the data partition remains indeed decrypted and therefore, as you say, you do not really take advantage of disk encryption.



Even worse: when I say that the partition is "decrypted", concretely this means that the data encryption key is present somewhere in your phone memory. If the data on your phone is valuable enough (eg. has any value for corporate or governmental adversaries), there are techniques allowing an advanced attacker to dump this memory, get this encryption key, and access your data no matter if your phone was locked in the first place.



The good news is that there are applications allowing you to shutdown or reboot the phone after a few unsuccessful unlock attempts. Concretely, this means that after let's say 5 wrong unlock attempts, the phone will shutdown/reboot, effectively dropping the encryption key from memory, leaving the attacker no way to access your data without finding your encryption key.



Moreover, I attract your attention the fact that Google put an arbitrary limitation in Android requiring the end-users to use the same password for decryption and unlocking. If you have rooted your device, there are ways to use a strong and complex password for disk encryption and a quick to input unlock PIN. Be aware that using short/easy passwords or a PIN for encryption essentially annihilates any advantage brought by encryption since they would be breakable using dictionary or brute-force attacks.


Topics


2D Engines   3D Engines   9-Patch   Action Bars   Activities   ADB   Advertisements   Analytics   Animations   ANR   AOP   API   APK   APT   Architecture   Audio   Autocomplete   Background Processing   Backward Compatibility   Badges   Bar Codes   Benchmarking   Bitmaps   Bluetooth   Blur Effects   Bread Crumbs   BRMS   Browser Extensions   Build Systems   Bundles   Buttons   Caching   Camera   Canvas   Cards   Carousels   Changelog   Checkboxes   Cloud Storages   Color Analysis   Color Pickers   Colors   Comet/Push   Compass Sensors   Conferences   Content Providers   Continuous Integration   Crash Reports   Credit Cards   Credits   CSV   Curl/Flip   Data Binding   Data Generators   Data Structures   Database   Database Browsers   Date &   Debugging   Decompilers   Deep Links   Dependency Injections   Design   Design Patterns   Dex   Dialogs   Distributed Computing   Distribution Platforms   Download Managers   Drawables   Emoji   Emulators   EPUB   Equalizers &   Event Buses   Exception Handling   Face Recognition   Feedback &   File System   File/Directory   Fingerprint   Floating Action   Fonts   Forms   Fragments   FRP   FSM   Functional Programming   Gamepads   Games   Geocaching   Gestures   GIF   Glow Pad   Gradle Plugins   Graphics   Grid Views   Highlighting   HTML   HTTP Mocking   Icons   IDE   IDE Plugins   Image Croppers   Image Loaders   Image Pickers   Image Processing   Image Views   Instrumentation   Intents   Job Schedulers   JSON   Keyboard   Kotlin   Layouts   Library Demos   List View   List Views   Localization   Location   Lock Patterns   Logcat   Logging   Mails   Maps   Markdown   Mathematics   Maven Plugins   MBaaS   Media   Menus   Messaging   MIME   Mobile Web   Native Image   Navigation   NDK   Networking   NFC   NoSQL   Number Pickers   OAuth   Object Mocking   OCR Engines   OpenGL   ORM   Other Pickers   Parallax List   Parcelables   Particle Systems   Password Inputs   PDF   Permissions   Physics Engines   Platforms   Plugin Frameworks   Preferences   Progress Indicators   ProGuard   Properties   Protocol Buffer   Pull To   Purchases   Push/Pull   QR Codes   Quick Return   Radio Buttons   Range Bars   Ratings   Recycler Views   Resources   REST   Ripple Effects   RSS   Screenshots   Scripting   Scroll Views   SDK   Search Inputs   Security   Sensors   Services   Showcase Views   Signatures   Sliding Panels   Snackbars   SOAP   Social Networks   Spannable   Spinners   Splash Screens   SSH   Static Analysis   Status Bars   Styling   SVG   System   Tags   Task Managers   TDD &   Template Engines   Testing   Testing Tools   Text Formatting   Text Views   Text Watchers   Text-to   Toasts   Toolkits For   Tools   Tooltips   Trainings   TV   Twitter   Updaters   USB   User Stories   Utils   Validation   Video   View Adapters   View Pagers   Views   Watch Face   Wearable Data   Wearables   Weather   Web Tools   Web Views   WebRTC   WebSockets   Wheel Widgets   Wi-Fi   Widgets   Windows   Wizards   XML   XMPP   YAML   ZIP Codes