Over the past two years, the growth of remote work has dramatically changed the cybersecurity landscape. In particular the number of people who also use smartphones has grown – corporate or personal – to work on corporate documents and files. For cybercriminals it’s a godsend: the attack surface for conducting operations against companies (large, medium or small) has multiplied. But despite the fact that smartphones are always a treasure chest full of sensitive information, banking data, private documents, the way we approach their “securing” is even more superficial than computers.
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Manufacturing companies have been dealing with the root problem for some time now, with dedicated solutions implemented directly in the software and even in the hardware of the devices. Apple is the most advantaged, because it directly controls the integration between software and hardware of its iPhones and iPads. Among Android manufacturers, on the other hand, Samsung enjoys the best strategic position, for similar reasons: even if Android, the operating system of Google, runs on the devices of the Korean manufacturer, the company directly controls the production of many of its chips.
As part of the security platform called Knoxthe implementation of safe zones inside the components is therefore a fundamental first step.
“The Knox Security Platform it is based on four pillars. The first and most important is a security design that starts right from the chips “, explained Seungwon Shin, Vice President of Samsung in charge of security and privacy on mobile devices, during a roundtable in which Italian Tech participated exclusively for the Italy. “Controlling the supply chain and design allows us to create a safe production chain and an end product that users can trust”.
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The result of these efforts has materialized in particular in the development of the Knox Vault, an isolated and secure subsystem, tamper-proof, equipped with its own processor and its own memory interface. “Knox Vault is a key element of the Knox security platform,” said Seungwon Shin. “It is available on Galaxy S21, S22 models and on our most recent flagships such as Galaxy Fold 3 ”. In the Vault, similar in concept to the Secure Enclave of Apple chips, the devices save the most sensitive information, such as biometric data for unlocking the device, or encryption keys for Android Keystore.
The other three pillars of Samsung’s security strategy are data isolationi.e. the isolation and secure division of personal data on devices, data encryption, i.e. the encryption of data on the phone, and finally the run-time protection, thanks to which the Samsung device always works in a safe state, blocking in real-time unauthorized access to the phone’s kernel.
“Another fundamental aspect for the long-term safety of the devices is the guarantee of constant updates even for older models, ”continued Seungwon Shin. In the case of Samsung, which develops and markets dozens of smartphone models every year, this is no small feat. “Our choice is to always offer at least 5 years of security updates. To date, this means covering more than 150 models with constant updates for a total of more than one billion units ”.
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Knox solutions, which Samsung offers so much to customers who purchase smartphones for personal use, how much (and above all) the companies that have to equip employees with secure Android devices, are now also a powerful marketing tool.
In order to compete on the one hand with Apple, particularly in the US market, and on the other with all other manufacturers, Samsung knows that security must be integrated as much in the hardware and software as in the marketing efforts.
Se Apple has inevitably led the way for unsuspected times, focusing in particular on data privacy as a promotional element, Samsung has not been watching and has not contented itself with basing its security solutions only on the frameworks and solutions offered on the Android software by Google. In this sense, the company has been able to gain an advantage over other smartphone manufacturers that use the same operating system. And it is precisely for this strategic advantage that Knox, which could potentially be extended as a licensed Android security solution, will instead remain a carefully guarded brand by Samsung.
“We continue to work to spread awareness of security solutions in the Android field, and many of our solutions are open and accessible to our competitors as well, ”concluded Sungwon Shin. “The Knox platform, however, was created and developed specifically for Samsung devices, and as such it is highly customized to our needs. It is therefore not plausible that Knox will become a standard for Android, even if we continue to share our development path openly with all our partners ”.