What does encryption failure on a megaphone tablet mean. Data encryption on Android devices. Encryption failure: what to do

› News

Android encryption failed: what to do?

On the modern phones and tablets, we store a lot of important and even confidential information. These can be personal photos, correspondence, audio recordings, logins, passwords, details bank cards and other. Often, users do not think about ways to protect such data, until, for example, they lose their gadget. AT worst case- it falls into the hands of intruders who are happy to use your information for personal purposes. Sometimes that's the whole point of stealing a phone. How to protect personal data?

Encryption and its meaning

Most commonly used for data protection regular password to a screen lock, such as a pattern lock or a numeric password. But often this method is unreliable. If desired, such protection can be bypassed and then all your personal data will be in full view. A more efficient way is encryption. The user himself will not feel much difference directly, but if the gadget is lost, even if attackers can somehow bypass the lock password, they will not have access to your data. Such encryption is done quite simply:
Explay Fresh - make hard reset on a smartphone

"Settings"; "Security" and "Encryption".

After that, you will need to enter the code and wait for some time until all the data is encrypted, this can take quite a long time, especially if their volume is large. It happens that over time you can see the message Android encryption failed, what should I do in this case?
What to do if the tablet / smartphone does not turn on or freezes

Encryption failure: how to fix the problem?

In order to avoid such problems, you should always make a backup copy of your data. For example, the Google cloud can become a reliable storage, this best option for all android users. If you didn’t do this and saw a message about encryption failure, the main thing is not to rush to press the “Reset phone” button.

First, remove the external memory card, the data on it is not encrypted, this is provided for by the policy of the OS developers. Only after that you can click this button, but be prepared for the fact that you may lose personal data.

Only in rare cases, after rebooting the system, the failure is eliminated, in other cases, it will be necessary to roll back to the time until the failure was detected.

Be careful about data encryption so that you yourself do not become a victim of your vigilance.

Today, each user has to think about protecting confidential information from unauthorized persons. Manufacturers mobile devices care about future customers and their right to privacy, so more and more attention is paid to the preservation of personal data. Tablets can also be classified as personal devices, so let's talk about their protection.

Is it possible to disable encryption on the tablet?

The system functions of modern tablets support the encryption of information stored both on the internal memory of the device and on an external SD card. It should be remembered that working encryption has a negative impact on the performance of the device. Those who value computing power over the safety of personal data should definitely read this article.

If you were lucky enough to get hold of an Android tablet that was originally based on a version of the operating system, you will not be able to turn off the encryption function. The developers decided to enforce forced encryption of information on the latest versions of the OS, but do not despair, because hackers do not sleep either. There is no doubt that these workers will soon offer their own solution to this problem. At the same time, tablets whose operating system has been updated to the latest version from earlier ones are not limited by such restrictions, so the option to turn off encryption is available. However, we recommend that you think about whether you really need it so much?

For more early versions Android, up to 2.3.4., encryption must be started manually. This option is in the settings menu: Security->Encryption->Encrypt Device. It must be borne in mind that after that it is impossible to decrypt the encrypted data, since the developer did not provide for such a possibility. Thus, if you need to decrypt information, its loss is inevitable. To do this, you will need to reset the device to factory settings from the "recovery" mode.

To perform such a reset, in the off state of the tablet, hold down the volume up and down keys on it at the same time, as well as the power key. Will be uploaded to engineering menu, where using the volume buttons you need to find the menu item "wipe data / factory reset" and, having selected it, press the power key. When the reset operation is completed, you must reboot by selecting "reboot". After booting into working mode on the tablet, you should restore personal data, and then no longer start encryption.

- an error that can only happen on devices where such a function was originally enabled. Such a useful option is used to encrypt all data that is stored in the gadget's memory. As a decryption master key for tablets, the pin code of the device is used, which selects the OS as its source. And since no system works perfectly, without errors, you need to know if there is an encryption failure on the tablet, what to do?

Encryption failure: what needs to be done?

If the model that is responsible for the encryption procedure is loaded one of the very first, an error occurs. It is he who will not allow all other modules and options to perform settings, load a full-fledged operating system. To resolve the issue, you can try the following step by step:

1. Without turning off the device, carefully remove the microSD. It is on it that the data will not be encrypted, and therefore it is they who can remain available. Do not press Reset. This is the worst thing a user can do for their tablet. Otherwise (if the button was still pressed), you can say goodbye to all the data that is stored in the / data directory, as well as in the / sdcard folder.
2. Use the Reset button only after removing the microcard. If even after the first time it is not possible to solve the problem, experts advise rebooting the system several times. in some cases, the key may not be loaded correctly due to an error in the code that is located on the external card. In the vast majority of cases, the actions taken will not all be useful, but it is with them that you still need to start.
3. If the failure cannot be resolved, you will need to reset the OS to the factory level or roll it back. After that, you can install the cryptographic module. To complete the task, you will need an external card, the volume of which will be at least 8 GB. It is recommended to transfer all important documents to it. Dial 0M in swap and download ICS. After connecting, you can clear the cache and do full backup information stored on the device. After installing ICS, you can reboot your device.

A similar error can only appear if the user initially turned it on (on a tablet or other mobile device).

This function ensures the protection of personal data stored in the memory of the android device. Encryption in this case is performed by the ICS system using a 128-bit master key. If a password or pin is set to unlock the screen, then Android by default selects it as the "source" for creating a decryption master key.

After enabling the encryption function, each time the OS is rebooted, the device will request given password or pin.

However, no system works without errors and periodically the android encryption fails here, which makes unforeseen changes to the 16 kilobyte master key.

Such a failure can “show up” at any moment, so in order not to lose necessary information always save backups data. To do this, for example, you can make a backup on a Google account.

Otherwise, the cost of decrypting the card will "come out" much more expensive than the cost of all the information stored in the phone's memory (which will need to be decrypted). In the worst case, decryption will take so much time that the information will lose its relevance long ago.

Android encryption error: what to do?

So, what to do if the phone writes "encryption failure"? Such a message appears before the graphical shell is loaded, for the reason that the module responsible for encryption (Cryptfs) is loaded one of the first. It allows all other modules to decrypt the settings, read data from the cache and load the full version of the OS.

1. 1. First, you need to extract from microSD devices map. Due to Google's policy, the information on it is not encrypted by default, and, accordingly, this data may still be available.

The worst thing you can do now is to press the only soft button on the screen - Reset phone.

After activating it (in most cases), you can say goodbye to the information stored in the / data folder and, possibly, / sdcard.

1. 2. After removing the card, try restarting your android device using the mentioned button. If you didn’t succeed in eliminating the encryption failure on the tablet the first time, try a few more times: perhaps the key is simply not loading correctly due to an error in the code located on the external card.

Unfortunately, in most cases, rebooting does not fix the encryption failure, since either the internal card of the android device or its controller are “knocked down”.

1. 3. If restarting the phone / tablet did not help fix the encryption failure, you should “roll back” the firmware and install new version cryptographic module: so that the device can be used.

This will require an external card, preferably at least 8 GB (you can use the “old” one if all important data has been backed up from it), on which the / data and / sdcard temporary partitions will be saved.

1. 4. Insert a microSD card into your android device.

The next step is preparing the phone for flashing. To do this, you need to go into Android recovery mode. Depending on the model and manufacturer of the device, access to this mode can be carried out in different ways, but the most common key combination is to simultaneously press the power and volume down buttons with fixation for one to two seconds.

In recovery mode, find the properties of the SD card and divide it into segments that will be reserved for the above sections. For the /data area, 2 GB of memory should be enough.

For "swap" select 0M. The process of preparing the map will take some time - during this time you can download latest version ICS corresponding to your phone/tablet model.

After downloading, save it to the already partitioned SD card.

At this point in recovery mode, the feature should be activated as an external media.

When the connection to the computer is secured, do not forget to make a full "backup" of the information stored on the android device.

This time, the device will take a little longer to start up, but after a reboot, the encryption failure will already be “cancelled” and work with the device and external card will continue as before.

The FBI tried to twist the arms through the court Apple who doesn't want to write code to bypass their own security system. A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the Android kernel that allows superuser access to bypass all security mechanisms. These two events, although not related, coincided in time, clearly demonstrating the differences in the security system of the two popular mobile operating systems. Let's put aside for a moment the issue of a critical vulnerability in the Android kernel, which is unlikely to ever be fixed by most manufacturers in already released models, and consider the data encryption mechanisms in Android and Apple iOS. But first, let's talk about why encryption is needed in mobile devices at all.

Why encrypt your phone?

An honest person has nothing to hide - the most popular leitmotif that sounds after each publication on the topic of data protection. “I have nothing to hide,” many users say. Alas, much more often this means just the certainty that no one will bother to get into the data of a particular Vasya Pupkin, because who is interested in them at all? Practice shows that this is not so. We will not go far: just last week, the career of a school teacher ended with her dismissal, who left her phone on the table for a minute. The students instantly unlocked the device and removed from it photographs of the teacher in a form that is condemned by the puritanical morality of American society. The incident served as sufficient grounds for the dismissal of the teacher. Stories like this happen almost daily.

How unencrypted phones are hacked

We will not go into details, just keep in mind: data from an unencrypted phone can be extracted in almost one hundred percent of cases. “Almost” here refers rather to cases where the phone was physically damaged or destroyed immediately before the data was removed. In many Android devices and Windows phone there is a service mode that allows you to merge all the data from the device's memory via a regular USB cable. This applies to most devices based on the Qualcomm platform (HS-USB mode, which works even when the bootloader is locked), on Chinese smartphones With MediaTek processors(MTK), Spreadtrum and Allwinner (if the bootloader is unlocked), as well as all smartphones manufactured by LG (there is generally a convenient service mode that allows you to merge data even from a “bricked” device).

But even if the phone does not have a service "back door", data from the device can still be obtained by disassembling the device and connecting to the JTAG test port. In the most neglected cases, the eMMC chip is removed from the device, which is inserted into the simplest and very cheap adapter and works according to the same protocol as the most ordinary SD card. If the data has not been encrypted, everything is easily retrieved from the phone, right down to the authentication tokens that provide access to your cloud storages.

What if encryption was enabled? In older versions of Android (up to and including 4.4), this could be bypassed (with the exception, however, of Samsung devices). But in Android 5.0, a strong encryption mode has finally appeared. But is it as useful as Google thinks it is? Let's try to figure it out.

Android 5.0–6.0

The first device under Android control 5.0 was the Google Nexus 6, released in 2014 by Motorola. At that time, 64-bit mobile processors with ARMv8 architecture, but Qualcomm did not have a ready-made solution on this platform. As a result, the Nexus 6 used the Snapdragon 805 chipset based on 32-bit cores. own design Qualcomm.

Why is it important? The fact is that ARMv8 processors have a built-in set of commands to speed up streaming data encryption, while 32-bit ARMv7 processors do not have such commands.

So watch your hands. There are no instructions for accelerating crypto in the processor, so Qualcomm has built a dedicated hardware module into the system logic set, designed to perform the same functions. But something didn't work out for Google. Either the drivers were not finished at the time of release, or Qualcomm did not provide source codes(or not allowed to publish them in AOSP). Details are unknown to the public, but the result is known: Nexus 6 shocked reviewers with an extremely slow data reading speed. How slow? Approximately like this:

The reason for the eightfold lag behind the "little brother", the smartphone Motorola Moto X 2014 is simple: forced encryption implemented by the company at the software level. In real life, Nexus 6 users on the original firmware version complained about numerous lags and friezes, noticeable heating of the device and relatively poor autonomy. Installing a kernel that disables forcibly activated encryption solved these problems all at once.

However, firmware is such a thing, you can finish it, right? Especially if you are Google, have unlimited finances and have the most qualified developers on staff. Well, let's see what happened next.

And then there was Android 5.1 (six months later), in which the right drivers to work with a hardware accelerator, it was first added in the preliminary version of the firmware, and then removed again in the final version due to serious problems with sleep mode. Then there was Android 6.0, at the time of the release of which users had already lost interest in this game and began to disable encryption by any means using third-party cores. Or do not disable if a read speed of 25–30 MB / s is enough.

Android 7.0

Okay, but in Android 7, it was possible to fix a serious problem with a flagship device that is almost two years old? Yes, and it's been fixed! Elcomsoft Labs compared the performance of two identical Nexus 6s, one running Android 6.0.1 with the ElementalX kernel (with encryption disabled), while the other ran the first pre-release android versions 7 with default settings (encryption enabled). The result is there:

Continued available to members only

Option 1. Join the "site" community to read all the materials on the site

Membership in the community during the specified period will give you access to ALL Hacker materials, increase your personal cumulative discount and allow you to accumulate a professional Xakep Score rating!