Hi there,
Has any one tested the hardware disc encrytion that Samsung touted pre-launch? Are there any white-papers on how this works?
"Samsung has also taken steps to include Enterprise software for business users, that include On Device Encryption, Cisco’s AnyConnect VPN, MDM (Mobile Device Management), Cisco WebEx, Juniper,[28] and secure remote device management from Sybase.[36]"
Source https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II#Bundled_applications
Regards, F.
I asked on the CM forums, and CM does not have any disc encryption, yet. DOes anyone know about Samsung's offering?
BR.
Shame-less bump, in case some one has bought the i9100 by now and found the encryption option. Any one?
I found this gumpf about it. Its a third party product provided by Sophos.
"Antivirus & Firewall Security for Android Devices with Disk Encryption
SophosWith rising security threats and growing demands for the need of end point protection and data security are growing and so does Sophos comes forward and launches a mobile control which is mainly designed and is developed for smart phones like Android. This product comes with Sophos Anti-virus, Sophos Client Firewall and Sophos Disk Encryption which protects from threats and provides the disk encryption.
Basically, the SOPHOS secures the smart phones by centrally configuring all the security settings and then also it enables the lock down of unwanted features. With strong set of password and security policy it can even control the installation of apps, blocking use of cameras, browsers like You Tube etc. Also, additionally you can easily secure the access to the corporate mail by setting up the registered devices to access the mail.
Sophos Mobile control secures the mobile devices by centrally configuring security settings and enabling lock down of unwanted features. The features like strong password policy and lock period, control and installation of applications and blocking usage of cameras and browsers will help in enabling the enforcement of consistent "
Source: hxxp://androidadvices.com/antivirus-firewall-security-for-android-devices-with-disk-encryption/
galaxy s II I9100 has disk encryption built-in but disabled
I went through the files in initramfs and i found :
1) lots of encryption related strings and error messages in the /init executable
2) /init.rc has an event handler "on property:encryption.bootmode=remount"
3) /res/encryption.conftab - a configuration file that maps directories like /data to /dev/mapper/data to /dev/block/<data block device>
important point is that /init executable contains the name of this file and error messages relevant to the processing of this file.
4) /res/images contains images that together are a encryption graphic UI
Conclusion: Block-device level encryption is available and configured through dm_crypt by the init executable and some configuration files. Some flag probably exists somewere to enable this encryption.
Guess: after the flag is flipped the device should ask during boot for encryption password and encrypt /data /efs /cache /sdcard directories. On consecutive re-boots the same password will be asked to be able to mount through the configuration file(s).
Anyone knows how to enable the damn thing? Apparently Sybase have an app called Afaria AES for samsung that enables this functionality. I guess that they are doing it using some unpublished samsung security API. Maybe an extension of the DeviceAdmin class. Anyone know a way to check this?
I configured the standard email client to connect to my exchange server which enforces an encryption policy and then I got prompted to that my SGS2 would then encrypt itself.
I've no idea if there is a way to do it manually or even how to un-encrypt it if I ever remove the exchange account.
dwod said:
I configured the standard email client to connect to my exchange server which enforces an encryption policy and then I got prompted to that my SGS2 would then encrypt itself.
I've no idea if there is a way to do it manually or even how to un-encrypt it if I ever remove the exchange account.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, When you say, the SGS would encrypt itself, did you mean that the internal discs would be encrypted, or was this referring only to the connection over Email. I think the latter and if so then this is not the correct thread for this discussion. If the former then this is remarkable.
I am also looking for a way to enable encryption. The ability to use hardware-assisted file encryption was the first thing that caught my eye when they presented the SGS II at MWC.
I have contacted Samsung about this (twice) and they were not really helpful at all. They only replied that you need third party tools to use the SGS II encryption features and that there is no tool included with the handset. They also ignored my inquiry for a documented API which would make it possible to write a little program to switch encryption on.
It seems that Sybase Afaria is one of the solutions with the desired ability, a Microsoft Active Sync server is another, both enterprise level products. The Sophos product mentioned above might be yet another.
If we could only get some information about the API all these products must use to administer the phone!
fryandlaurie
@forgetmyname:
I'm pretty sure that it is about file level encryption: Connecting to a corporate exchange server allows the server (if configured accordingly) to enforce a host of security policies on the phone. One of these policies may well be the encryption of all mail traffic but I doubt that you would be prompted to acknowledge that.
fryandlaurie
It would be great to be able to file encrypt private photos, I don`t think its enough with a program that requirre a password to show the hidden files. As if one have physical access to the phone one can easely get the pictures.
Two options for i9100 Encryption
oleost said:
It would be great to be able to file encrypt private photos, I don`t think its enough with a program that requirre a password to show the hidden files. As if one have physical access to the phone one can easely get the pictures.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On Stock Samsung ROMs pre-ICS you can use Galaxy Device Encryption free or pro by hellcat (see google play) for full device encryption, including optional encrypting of the external SD card. Note, it has to be stock rom for this to work on GB and this only works on certain Samsung models that they added the encryption ability to the OS but didn't give the user a way to activate.
ICS supports encryption natively and gives the user access to turn this on without a push from an exchange server or the like, assuming this hasn't been removed/disabled by the developer of the ROM you're using.
Ed
Hi,
I made a new app: NFC Safe!
With NFC Safe you will be able to encrypt your private data with a NFC Tag (e.g. NFC Key Fob). You can add unlimited custom folder and entries. You will have only access to those entries with the specific NFC Tag! This is much more secure than protecting your data only with a password!
You can use any NFC Tag for this app! Your NFC Tag will be written with some data so it can only be used for this app.
NFC Safe | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)
Would be nice, if you test my app! My app is available for free!
With one of the next releases it will be also possible to encrypt/decrypt media files (images, audio, etc.)
Best Regards,
Sascha
I don't have any NFC tags on me right now nor would i really use this, but i have to say, this is a really cool idea!
While I understand if you're hesitant to post it, I'd want to review the app's source code before using it myself. Getting cryptography right, even when just using existing and well, implemented pieces, is vastly harder than getting it wrong. What algorithm do you use to encrypt the data? How about generating the key data? Are you using secure buffers? Initialization vectors? How are you detecting which key is correct for the data you're trying to access; is there a hash? What hash function? There are a lot of other important questions here, too.
With that said, the idea is fantastic. It would be especially great if you could support two-factor authentication (password + NFC tag, in this case) for extra-sensitive data, although password management in crypto has its own set of problems (what key derivation function, with what parameters? How are the password verifiers stored? Etc.)
Sorry for late reply!
xandros9 said:
I don't have any NFC tags on me right now nor would i really use this, but i have to say, this is a really cool idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then you should buy an NFC Tag! They are really cheap. For example you could buy a NFC keyfob, so you will have your NFC tag always in your pocket and as said, such a NFC Tag costs ca. 1 USD at ebay
GoodDayToDie said:
While I understand if you're hesitant to post it, I'd want to review the app's source code before using it myself. Getting cryptography right, even when just using existing and well, implemented pieces, is vastly harder than getting it wrong. What algorithm do you use to encrypt the data? How about generating the key data? Are you using secure buffers? Initialization vectors? How are you detecting which key is correct for the data you're trying to access; is there a hash? What hash function? There are a lot of other important questions here, too.
With that said, the idea is fantastic. It would be especially great if you could support two-factor authentication (password + NFC tag, in this case) for extra-sensitive data, although password management in crypto has its own set of problems (what key derivation function, with what parameters? How are the password verifiers stored? Etc.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi thanks for your feedback and your questions! I think you misunderstood my app. It's not a military app, where the highest security is important! My app doesn't need to encrypt the data, because the data is stored on your Windows Phone in the application data storage. Noone has access to this. If ever any person has access to those data, you and all other Windows Phone users have a very big problem!
So, my app is an app, not a Windows Application, where virus, NSA, etc. have access to your data There are a lot of apps which protect your personal data with a password. So if someone else has your phone (stolen, or a friend while you are not watching at it), he will be able to see your data, if the know your password (this is not impossible!) or guess your password! So my app protects your data with an NFC Tag. It's very comfortable to use and faster than typing a password and also more secure, because the third-person needs your phone AND your NFC Tag.
However, my app also encrypts the whole data, so even if someone have access to the application data storage, he will be unable to read your data. Windows Phone has a built in encryption mechanism, which can be used from an API. I'm using this encryption mechanism. This mechanism uses Triple-DES. It uses the user credentials and a randomly generated password (GUID with 36 chars/numbers and "-"-sign) to encrypt the data.
Hi! Welcome to XDA-Developers, where all of your assumptions about what cannot be accessed on the phone are wrong, or will be shortly!
OK, that's half a joke. But only half... as it turns out, the claim that "... Windows Phone in the application data storage. Noone has access to this." has been untrue for months. Check the Dev&Hacking forum, especially the Interop-unlock and SamWP8 Tools threads. We have the ability to access the entire WP8 file system. Currently that access is only via MTP (USB connection), but I and other people are working on extending it to homebrew apps as well.
Moving on... 3DES (even if used with a good mode of operation and a unique initialization vector, which I am guessing you probably didn't do) is obsolete and should not be used anymore. While it is considered adequate for existing code, it should not be used in new software, and cryptographers have been recommending a move to newer ciphers (such as AES) for years. As for using a GUID as a password, GUIDs are 128 bits (the dashes don't count, because they are always the same value in the same place, and each of the other 32 digits is hexadecimal only, meaning merely 4 bits of data), which is plenty if they are generated securely; however, most GUID generators do not use cryptographically secure random number generators. GUIDs are supposed to be unique (that's what the U stands for), but are not guaranteed to be unpredictable (which is one of the key requirements for an encryption key), and the way they are generated reflects this.
Oh, and good security is important in an awful lot more places than "a military app"! In fact, there's no such thing as "military-grade" encryption, really; there's only good encryption, and encryption which shouldn't be used for any purpose. For example, modern TLS (Transport Layer Security, the replacement for SSL or Secure Sockets Layer) cipher suites are intended to be secure even against governments and megacorporations (although there is of course suspicion as to whether the NSA have broken some of those cipher suites)... but TLS isn't just used on extremely sensitive stuff like top-secret documents and such, it's also used when browsing Facebook and Twitter, or accessing Gmail, or many other things of similarly minor sensitivity.
Thank you for explaining the intended use cases of the app, though. Do please be careful when making claims such as that something is "much more secure", though; you are liable to mislead people. TrueCrypt, a PC app that performs disk encryption and is intended to stand up to very powerful adversaries, uses only a password most of the time - but I would expect that, given a well-chosen password, it is more secure than this app. There are many critical components to security, and only the weakest link in the chain matters.
For what it's worth, if you are interested, I would be happy to help secure the app (on my own time, free of charge) as it sounds like something that I would quite like to use, if I could trust its security.
What exactly is your problem?!?!
I said, that noone has access to the Application Data Storage and this is true! There is no Virus available for Windows Phone and there is no App in the Store available which has access to another app's data storage! We are not talking about some special cases where the third-person already have STOLEN your device, because nothing in this world is safe! NOTHING! Everything can be hacked! Also I didnt know that all current Lumia devices were hacked. Other devices are not relevant (Nokia has a market share of more than 90%!).
The built-in encryption mechanism in Windows Phone is the same almost ANY Windows Phone app uses! Any banking app, Facebook, eBay, PayPal. The Wallet feature of Windows Phone uses it. If you have set up accounts (E-Mail, Microsoft Account, Office365, etc.) your passwords were encrypted with the SAME API my app uses. So if you think this API is totally unsafe, WHY THE HELL are you using Windows Phone? Also Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 uses THE SAME API for a lot of thinks. So please don't use Windows anymore!
I said, my app is more secure THAN AN APP which only uses a password and that is true. Also my app additionally encrypts the data and not only block the access to the data (which a lot of other apps only do!).
Please decrypt the attached file and tell me, how you did that and how long it took Thanks!
Whoa, whoa, calm down.
First of all, don't count on that "no app in the store..." business; There's *probably* no malicious app that can do so, but OEM apps can, if they have som reason to do so, access other app's install and data folders. I've written apps (using the Samsung OEM components, which are clumsy for the purpose but *do* work) to do it myself. It's not something you're likely to see in widespread use, but it's possible.
If you aren't bothering with the case of your phone being stolen, what's the point of the encryption anyhow? I mean, prevention of data loss in the event of device theft is one of *the* key use cases for data storage encryption! It's the rationale behind things like BitLocker (which is available on WP8, but only if the user has connected their phone to a company's Exchange server that pushes a policy requiring device encryption).
If you were honestly worried about market share, you probably wouldn't target WP at all; Nokia's fraction of the WP market share is lower than WP's fraction of the smartphone market share. Nonetheless, you are correct that, at this time, Nokia WP8 devices haven't been cracked. Nor have HTC's phones. I'm confident that this will change in time, though. You might have misunderstood my little joke at the start of my last post... but breaking into smartphone operating systems, getting past the lockdown policies that say "noone[sic] has access" (it's "nobody" or "no one", by the way) and taking those decisions into our own hands.
I guarantee you that the vast majority of WP apps don't use 3DES. I *know* full well that the Microsoft code doesn't; they had already deprecated that cipher years ago, when I interned there, long before even WP7 existed; its use was prohibited for new code. Just because you used the DPAPI (Data Protection API) doesn't mean you used it correctly (and by the way, that internship involved working on encryption in Windows, writing test tools for it). Please don't take this as some kind of personal insult; in my line of work (security engineer), I see a ton of misuse of cryptography. It is, as I said in my first post, hard to get right. That's why I offered to help.
I'm not going to bother taking the time to figure out what cipher you used on that file, and what its contents are supposed to look like enough to start doing any cryptanalysis, but I guarantee you it's not very good. There are repeated patterns, including long strings of null bytes, that are phenomenally unlikely to occur in a file that short after passing it through even a half-decent cipher (we're talking 1-in-several-billion chance here, no joke). Coming to this conclusion took all of a few seconds, by the way, using no tool more sophisticated than Notepad++. If I was pulling it off of a phone, I'd have a lot more idea of what type of plaintext to expect, and I could examine the decompilation of the app to see what ciphers were used, which would make things a lot easier. I'd say "for all I know, you just took the output of CryptGenRandom and put it in a file" but if you had, it wouldn't have had obvious patterns in it... in any case, it doesn't matter. I don't have to prove anything to you. I'm *trying* to help, and offer some good advice as well, but I can't force you to take it. There's no call for getting defensive, though. I wrote a file encryption utility myself one, in fact. It sucked, so then I wrote a program to break its encryption. Both experiences (but mostly the latter) taught me things.
A new version is available now, which includes image/photo encryption, OneDrive backup, bugfixes and other small improvments!
http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=0a8656d4-ed32-4bb5-baac-1317827e18d8
Hi,
I have a question:
My app is available in German and English since one year now! It was downloaded over 1000 times in Germany, but only 80 times in USA, UK, etc. I got 40 reviews (4-5 stars) in Germany and only one bad review in USA. So could someone explain what's wrong with my app? Is it not visible in the US Windows Phone store? Is my app very bad translated? Are there no Windows Phone users in the USA? Or maybe no one use NFC in the USA?
Best regards,
Sascha
Sorry, I don't tried your app yet but will try to answer your questions.
First, probably it's something wrong with your marketing, not the app Le me say: 1080 downloads per year - it's too small number (even 1000 in Germany). For example, my "marketplace entry ticket", "Lunar Lander Touch" app, very unpopular and underrated (but it's still one of my favorite games on WP, and good alcohol tester ), has 4078 for the year 2013.
As for NFC: I've tried to use it but stopped because of very uncomfortable WP implementation. That service should work flawlessly, without user interaction, stupid questions and dialogs, to be useful and popular. But unfortunately it's not (for the Windows Phones). Microsoft must add an option to disable NFC warnings.
P.S. I may recommend you to use "Snowden case" for advertizing
Thanks for your feedback!
Yes, I know that the download numbers are very bad, but I don't have an idea how to improve this. Because of my app is free and my private hobby I don't have money to buy ads, etc.
Improving my app had not effect. Thanks to DVLUP I "bought" ads for 50$ with AdDuplex, but this also had no effect.
It's really hard for individuals to get their apps famous and in a higher ranking in the Windows Phone Store without investing money
I understand... AdDuplex is really bad: I've tried once ($100 from DVLUP meeting plus I've bought another $100 coupon for $40) during a week - no results at all. Complained to AdDuplex support and manager gave me additional $300 for free, to spend within one day (sic! He-he, I wish to get $300 daily from my app!) - still no visible results, just a regular download fluctuations...
What you may try: advertise on more forums, prepare good pictures/screenshots; may be, video clip "howto" will be helpful. Embed RateMyApp Nokia's control (check NuGet) to your form. If you have XP on DVLUP, spend 'em for advertising campaign (these ones are extremely effective!).
P.S. I also thought about xda-based developers club, with "rate 5 stars my apps, and I'll rate yours" rule but I don't know how to implement it properly (but good customer rating is very important for the app distribution).
Thanks!
I already added RateMyApp. This was really helpfull to get more reviews. It's a pity that I had not implemented such a thing from the very first time my app was added to the Windows Phone Store :-/
I "bought" 1 week in App Social (DVLUP). Hope this helps. But it is also only in Germany.... I have enough users and reviews in Germany, I need them in USA, UK, etc. The problem with the DVLUP campaigns is, that you need at least 50 or 100 reviews (and 4,5 stars) as a requirement for the advertising. But you don't have so many reviews and that's the reason why you need the campaign to get more reviews, but you can't buy the campaign... A vicious circle!
I will do my best to get more downloads in other countries than Germany!
Hey, thanks for this app i find it realy useful.
Danke!
And here is the idea for the ad banner
Great idea
btw: Version 2.1 with new type "User Credentials" is available now!
Ok, I stopped developing, it's not worth. Sorry!
Years ago I bought a cheap and powerful rugged phone to use it as a navigation tool on my motorcycle.
A view months ago it began that the phone sporadicly opens up add websites in the chrome browser. This happens about once a day.
I read that the manufacturer is not trustworthy and DooGee delivered some firmware updates with trojan sw. So I guess in the best case DooGee tries to do some extra money by showing me adds. They may installed a backdoor that now opens these websites.
I don't make security critical things on this device but still I want to get rid of these adds. It's annoying to drive with the bike and navigate and then the navigation software is hidden because of these useless adds.
I do have root on this device using an older version of magisk.
I have Titanium Backup and theoretically I would be able to disable all processes / apps if I would know the name of the app.
But I don't know how I can find out which process is the originator of these adds.
I disabled the chrome browser but I guess there is an other process that just shows the website in chrome. So it may not be chrome browser's fault?!
And the list of all apps is long because I have to suspect the system apps also.
I tried some virus scanners from play store but they all found nothing. Useless apps...
Hope someone here can help.
Any idea for a good strategy how to find the bad app or process?
Any tool recommendation that may can find it?
Thanks.
Try Malwarebytes for your mobile device.
fpdragon said:
Any idea for a good strategy how to find the bad app or process?
Any tool recommendation that may can find it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Boot device into Safe Mode: You'll see "Safe mode" at the bottom of your screen
One by one, remove recently downloaded apps.
Tip: To remember the apps that you remove so that you can add them back, make a list.
After each removal, restart your device normally. See whether removing that app solved the problem.
jwoegerbauer said:
Boot device into Safe Mode: You'll see "Safe mode" at the bottom of your screen
One by one, remove recently downloaded apps.
Tip: To remember the apps that you remove so that you can add them back, make a list.
After each removal, restart your device normally. See whether removing that app solved the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am pretty sure that I don't downloaded any app that throws the adds. It must be something that comes from DooGee.
Bernal79 said:
mcafee will help to get rid of the malware
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mcafee has not found anything
James_Watson said:
Try Malwarebytes for your mobile device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
malwarebytes has not found anything
However, thanks for the recommendation.
fpdragon said:
mcafee has not found anything
malwarebytes has not found anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not surprising me.
Malicious software comes in several flavors, distinguished primarily by their method of propagation. The two most pervasive forms are viruses and worms. A virus attaches itself to an existing program such that, when that program is executed, bad things happen. Like a biological virus, it cannot live without a host. In contrast, a worm is an independent program that reproduces itself without requiring a host program. Depending on the form, a worm may be able to propagate without any action on the victim's part. Most malicious software today consists of worms rather than viruses.
Worms and viruses require slightly different protection mechanisms because of their different propagation methods. A virus scanner operates by searching for the signatures of known viruses. A signature is a characteristic pattern that occurs in every copy of a virus. It might be a string of characters, such as a message that the virus will display on the screen when activated, or it might be binary computer code or even a particular bit of data that is embedded in the virus. These patterns are identified by technicians at organizations specializing in computer security and are then made available on security Web sites. Virus scanners can then download the patterns to bring their internal pattern lists up to date.
An Antivirus software is checking your Android devices's apps and comparing them to known types of malware ( viruses & worms). It will also scan your Android device for behaviors that may signal the presence of a new, unknown malware. Typically, Antivirus software uses all of these 3 detection processes:
Specific Detection – This works by looking for known malware by a specific set of characteristics.
Generic Detection – This process looks for malware that are variants of known “families,” or malware related by a common codebase.
Heuristic Detection – This process scans for previously unknown viruses by looking for known suspicious behavior or file structures.
Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate. Trojans must spread through user interaction such as opening an email attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet.
IMHO Android itself is a pretty secure operating system.
jwoegerbauer said:
Not surprising me.
Malicious software comes in several flavors, distinguished primarily by their method of propagation. The two most pervasive forms are viruses and worms. A virus attaches itself to an existing program such that, when that program is executed, bad things happen. Like a biological virus, it cannot live without a host. In contrast, a worm is an independent program that reproduces itself without requiring a host program. Depending on the form, a worm may be able to propagate without any action on the victim's part. Most malicious software today consists of worms rather than viruses.
Worms and viruses require slightly different protection mechanisms because of their different propagation methods. A virus scanner operates by searching for the signatures of known viruses. A signature is a characteristic pattern that occurs in every copy of a virus. It might be a string of characters, such as a message that the virus will display on the screen when activated, or it might be binary computer code or even a particular bit of data that is embedded in the virus. These patterns are identified by technicians at organizations specializing in computer security and are then made available on security Web sites. Virus scanners can then download the patterns to bring their internal pattern lists up to date.
An Antivirus software is checking your Android devices's apps and comparing them to known types of malware ( viruses & worms). It will also scan your Android device for behaviors that may signal the presence of a new, unknown malware. Typically, Antivirus software uses all of these 3 detection processes:
Specific Detection – This works by looking for known malware by a specific set of characteristics.
Generic Detection – This process looks for malware that are variants of known “families,” or malware related by a common codebase.
Heuristic Detection – This process scans for previously unknown viruses by looking for known suspicious behavior or file structures.
Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate. Trojans must spread through user interaction such as opening an email attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet.
IMHO Android itself is a pretty secure operating system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the good explanation. But how can I track down the originator of the popup adds?
I would expect that the originator of the adds runs as a system app. If I could find out which system app does this and It's functions is not neccessary (eg system update or something) then I could kill and remove it.
BTW, after disabling the chrome browser it seems that there are no popup adds any more. For two days no more adds. I guess this is because I removed the last browser from the system and now the adds can't be opend? But still it would be cool to track down the application that opens the adds if I need a browser one time.
fpdragon said:
Thank you for the good explanation. But how can I track down the originator of the popup adds?
I would expect that the originator of the adds runs as a system app. If I could find out which system app does this and It's functions is not neccessary (eg system update or something) then I could kill and remove it.
BTW, after disabling the chrome browser it seems that there are no popup adds any more. For two days no more adds. I guess this is because I removed the last browser from the system and now the adds can't be opend? But still it would be cool to track down the application that opens the adds if I need a browser one time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems that you have turned on notification from a website in chrome. Clear chrome browsing data. Re-enable chrome. And check whether you receive any adds or not.