Full Encryption - Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello, I am looking for a full encryption software that works transparently, I mean, all the contents of my sd card would be encrypted with a password asked in the boot time or after lets say 10 mins, after I enter the password all my programs would work normally but with all the data encrypted/decrypted on the fly. So if someone steal my phone he wouldn't be able to access anything. Is there such a thing? thanks!

Related

How do I block access to my internal memory storage (if phone is lost or stolen)

Hi guys, I've been a little concern about my files on my memory card, so I moved them to the internal storage for "safety" my files are blocked by a security pattern, but if you take the memory card out people would be able to see whats in it, thats why I decided to move it to internal memory. But I found out that, even if I have a security pattern, people still can access to both, internal and external memory by using usb cable to connect the phone to the computer!! So, how do I block my internal and external memory from being accessed in the event that my phone get lost or stolen??
One possible option is to use anti thief programs like cerebrus. It allows you wipe the data from the phone by remotely sending SMS codes. Maybe encryption is also the way to go for you. But I am sure about that.
haulero said:
Hi guys, I've been a little concern about my files on my memory card, so I moved them to the internal storage for "safety" my files are blocked by a security pattern, but if you take the memory card out people would be able to see whats in it, thats why I decided to move it to internal memory. But I found out that, even if I have a security pattern, people still can access to both, internal and external memory by using usb cable to connect the phone to the computer!! So, how do I block my internal and external memory from being accessed in the event that my phone get lost or stolen??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Encrypt it. System settings/Encrypt device. You can, apparently, do both internal memory and SD card.
poldie said:
Encrypt it. System settings/Encrypt device. You can, apparently, do both internal memory and SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wanted to try that... however, it says password will required to decrypt each time you power it on..... so thats why I didn't do it. Cause of course, if I lost or someone steal my phone, phone is going to be ON, so that makes no sense because they will have access to my files anyways, since I already provided the password to decrypt it, right?
anubius said:
One possible option is to use anti thief programs like cerebrus. It allows you wipe the data from the phone by remotely sending SMS codes. Maybe encryption is also the way to go for you. But I am sure about that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a good idea, however. If I lose my phone at walmart, it will take a little while before I can get in a computer to wipe my data off! by then, people will have accessed my info already. It make take 30 minutes before I realize my phone was lost, then I need to get home and log in to cerebrus.com (or whatever its spelled lol) and wipe data from my device. What I would like to find is something that will block my data from being read if the phone is connected to computer via usb cable.
Like I said before, I already have pattern block, they will not be able to access my internal memory without the correct pattern, they can take the sd card and see my files in another device, but I'm not worried about that because I already moved all the important files to the internal memory of the phone.
I too want an answer
Yes off course, someone can just take my phone and can easily copy my internal data. We need a solution for that.
This has been talked about over and over I believe, but a real "solution" has not been found yet I guess. I just want to direct you to another thread with my take on this issue.

Android 4.2 Full Encryption : Feedback please?

Hello,
I'm interested in encrypting my phone (rootbox 4.2) including the external SD Card (if that's possible..?) but i need to know if you do it, then let's say you take that sd card out of the phone and plug it in your pc, how do you access the data? And is that still impossible to unencrypt the phone after it was encrypted (i mean on last android versions)?
Thanks.
Never got any answer here... Still interested by any feeback : i need full encryption!
Yes it is possible to encrypt and unencrypt the phone and sd card or just the phone itself via the setting menu on your phone. To access encrypted files on a device or pc I don't think it is possible because your sd was encrypted with your phone.Here's also another website for more info type in( do you encrypt your sd card? android central) on your web browser.
Sorry but i don't get all you're saying, can you give a link? I'd like to encrypt everything AND being able to decrypt it on a PC whenever i want. That's probably possible but maybe not yet avalaible by user friendly methods..
Bump, if anyone knows more about all these things..

[Q] Encrypted Device + SD, DEcryption Fails

Hey Folks,
i've got a situation here, Samsung couldn't help and on I only find decryption manuals with a working phone.
So: I have encrypted my s5 mini + my sd card.
Now I wanted to decrypt that again, because this "always typing a password" was annoying...
It failed. I can't open my pictures, my music, my videos.
Is there any possibility how i can acces my data again (without formatting the card + restore experiments please...)
Thank you very much in advance!
Ghost
Happened to me once, I tried reencrypting it again, which succeded, and then I was able to decrypt it.
PS: Help being delivered
guetzli32 said:
Happened to me once, I tried reencrypting it again, which succeded, and then I was able to decrypt it.
PS: Help being delivered
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay let me get this straight.
You Reset your Phone, Encrypted the SD Card with the same (???) password again and you where than able to decrypt it? And after that you where able to open you pictures, music on your computer too?

SD card encryption

Hi
I am setting up my new phone, I have purchased a new SD card but before I set it up would like to know is it advisable to set it up at encrypted or just normal,
I would like the extra encryption but the problem of it not being accessible anywhere is a problem
What if my phone was to stop working or just die all of a sudden, it's not a big brand so could happen....will I lose all the data if that was to happen?
Can I buy another phone same model and use the card in there ?
Any recoveries out there that allow access to the encrypted SD card
I would just like a little clarification as it seems confusing
Thanks
Sent from my m8 using Tapatalk
The phone acts as a private-key. So, no, you won't be able to use a same-model phone to decrypt. it would be too easy for a theft to do the same.
You need to choose:
- portability & no encryption
- no-portability & encryption
OR
- portability & encryption just on device (no SD)
It's sad Android doesn't provide a way to backup & restore the private-key on some other device, yet (also I didn't hear of any interest in going this direction).
Or at least allow to generate that private-key starting from some custom passphrase/password (so that could be regenerated/decrypted when providing it again; like linux's ssh-gen command does [I think]).
So you choose Security VS Portability.
I tried to follow the third-option but it takes a lot of effort and care (configure backups of the internal storage, plus always being sure to have the critical data out of the SD (photos, documents, videos, files, anything), that of course need to be manually selected. Loosing my phone recently, I realized that it protected me partially and that I dunno exactly what I exposed and what I didn't.
Go for the first option and configure solid regular incremental backups.
That's the first thing I will do on my new smartphone: choose a proper-sized SD (that won't change); then encrypt everything internal and external (preferably with no data yet); secure with an antivirus and a tracking app; configure a solid backup system of important type of data (personal data mostly; and things that single apps don't backup/restore by themselves; and a regular FolderSync incremental backup to my home computer, every time that I enter my home WiFi network).
That's how you prevent from data loss if/when your phone gets lost/broken/stolen.
For portability just take care to have a USB cable so that you can use your phone as a portable encrypted drive.
"Backup" is the solution you probably want to follow.

Stock ROM user data recover fails, encryption failure

Blackview BV5000 Android 6.0 phone, software borked by malware removal tool. Phone marginally operable, but a backup wasn't possible. Data was encrypted.
Using the stock android recovery <3e>: "backup user data". Backed up to empty SD card, the SD card previously in the phone was removed because it was too small, and is still available.
Flashed the stock rom on the phone, using the exact same ROM version number, build date and time as was previously on the phone.
Phone boots, data gone. Everything set to defaults -- and there is no password set.
Using the stock android recovery <3e>: "restore user data".
User data restores, sucessfully so it says.
On boot I get this error message:
The password you entered is correct, but unfortunately your data is corrupt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and I'm offered the option of a factory reset.
I did not enter a password. Resetting, booting, and entering the password previously used gives the same result.
Any ideas?
Accidentally, I ran into the same problem on the Accent Speed-X2 with Android 6.0. But I'm just experimenting with the stock recovery function. Therefore, in my case no confidential data can be lost. But I always get this error. Did this option work for you before you changed the SD card? Do you know how to set a password for backup? Is this the password that is in the developer section?
---------- Post added at 05:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:05 PM ----------
I just successfully completed the backup / restore operation after setting up the PIN code and the backup password. When the phone booted, I was asked for the backup password, and after the loading I entered the pin code. All settings have been saved. So I suppose these steps are important.
voromax said:
But I always get this error. Did this option work for you before you changed the SD card? Do you know how to set a password for backup? Is this the password that is in the developer section?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I understand the mechanism now...
The error message is misleading. The user data isn't corrupt, it's unusable because the phone password doesn't match the password used to encrypt the data. Not entering a password doesn't mean there's no password, just that "default_password" is the password used.
So, if the password used to encrypt the data on the SD card is either "default_password", or the PIN entered by me, why can't I decrypt the SD card? Since a four-digit PIN isn't much of an encryption (there's only 10.000 possibilities, and one could check those, maybe starting with date formats), all password are further jumbled using a 128 bit random number. The resulting jumble is stored in internal memory as a key, and used to decrypt the SD card.
The moment you reset the phone, the key is lost. Knowing the password ("default_password", for instance) doesn't do you any good because the random number part is missing. So, you should be able to backup and restore your user data on the same phone, as long as the key file is intact. The moment you lose that file (that is, do a factory reset, or ROM reinstall, or wipe the data partition where the files lives, or just delete the file), your data is toast. It's that way by design, so if you lose the SD card your data is safe (as long as it isn't in an unlocked phone).
This explains why I could enter the old PIN and the SD card still wasn't readable.
Backup and reinstall should work on the same phone if you don't do anything to reset this key. I didn't test this, because I got the phone borked.
I did find instructions on how to read the SD card: AIUI, it requires a rooted phone, downloading the key file, extracting the key. Then either mounting the SD card as an encrypted volume under Linux using the key, or replacing the key file in the phone.
It's likely that it would be easier to use a better backup function that a rooted phone might offer. Also, reading the SD card while in the phone, with the phone in mass storage mode, will allow acces to the data, as then the phone does the decryption transparently.
I did factory restore between backup and recovery, but I think the encryption salt can use some kind of device UID. Also I doubt that reinstalling the ROM can affect it too. So I will try to restore the backup on another device to confirm your assumptions. And if recovery does not succeed, you are right, and the backup is only suitable for the phone from which it is made. I'll post the details later. My condolences on your phone.

Categories

Resources