• truxnell@infosec.pub
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    19 days ago

    After a reboot all the data is encrypted and needs a pin/fingerprint to unlock. So if it’s stolen (or feds get it) a planned reboot resets it to a highly secure state that is much more difficult to hack into than when it’s just locked from timeout. Edit: removed fingerprint, corrected below.

      • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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        19 days ago

        Much of the data on your phone, including critical information that’s required to run the operating system and make the device function, is fully encrypted when the device is off/rebooted.

        While in this locked down state, nothing can run. You don’t receive notifications, applications can’t run in the background, even just accessing the device yourself is slow as you have to wait for the whole system to decrypt and start up.

        When you unlock the device for the first time; much of that data is decrypted so that it can be used, and the keys required to unlock the rest of the data get stored in memory where they can be quickly accessed and used. This also makes the device more vulnerable to attacks.

        There’s always a trade off between convenience and security. The more secure a system, the less convenient it is to use.

    • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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      19 days ago

      After a reboot all the data is encrypted and needs a pin/fingerprint to unlock.

      Just to clarify, it needs a PIN/password to unlock after reboot. Biometrics like fingerprint aren’t available until the device has been decrypted.