Database Users

PhatNotes Pro - Encryption Good?

Hi Guys, I've been using phatnotes pro 4.7.2 full version, for as long as I remember now even when they were called something else... anyways they have a protect note option, which adds a password to the notes you make.
How STRONG is this password protection? Does it even add encryption or it's just a simple password block and anyone can override and view the notes using a hex editor or text editor???? is it safe to leave a few credit card numbers in there?

Noone knows, the developer uses 'security by obscurity' by refusing to disclose the algorithm used.
The most secure algoritms used (AES Rjindaal, Twofish/Blowfish etc) have been subject to years of public scrutiny. It's the implementation not the algorithm itself that makes the security. There is no security threat form disclosing the algorithm.
I'd recommend staying away from this until the algorithm is disclosed if you want to encrypt your data.

bydandie said:
Noone knows, the developer uses 'security by obscurity' by refusing to disclose the algorithm used.
The most secure algoritms used (AES Rjindaal, Twofish/Blowfish etc) have been subject to years of public scrutiny. It's the implementation not the algorithm itself that makes the security. There is no security threat form disclosing the algorithm.
I'd recommend staying away from this until the algorithm is disclosed if you want to encrypt your data.
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So are you saying they DO using some form of encryption within their application when password protecting the notes or you don't know? I don't particularly care for what algorithm or encryption method they are using, my main concern is, are they even using encryption at all.
If my phone ever gets lost or stolen, most people who finds/steals it would just hard reset and wipe everything from the phone, so if there is even a slightest form of encryption, my data should be safe.

Depending on how often you use your 'secret' files. I have 1 particular note (in Notes) that I keep my personal stuff like passport number and others stuff that I may be using them, or not (very often, I don't). Hence I use the ccrryyppttoo (`crypto` with every letter doubled). I use this to encrypt that particular note. There is a certain advantages to it. (a) It still sync over outlook without 3rd party software plugin. (b) others still able to see the note, with non-sense short characters on it (eg, I have passport number a lot of other numbers there, which ended up only in 5 characters). There is also a desktop version available, if you wanted to have it tested (or incases where you have lost your phone and your file encrypted in your PC, you can use it to decrypt it).

hanmin said:
Depending on how often you use your 'secret' files. I have 1 particular note (in Notes) that I keep my personal stuff like passport number and others stuff that I may be using them, or not (very often, I don't). Hence I use the ccrryyppttoo (`crypto` with every letter doubled). I use this to encrypt that particular note. There is a certain advantages to it. (a) It still sync over outlook without 3rd party software plugin. (b) others still able to see the note, with non-sense short characters on it (eg, I have passport number a lot of other numbers there, which ended up only in 5 characters). There is also a desktop version available, if you wanted to have it tested (or incases where you have lost your phone and your file encrypted in your PC, you can use it to decrypt it).
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1. I think your link doesn't work.
2. Thanks for the suggestion! But that means adding another program to my long list of programs, I rather just use phatnotes if they are somewhat secure.
3. That still doesn't answer my original question =(
4. Can you send me the program for me to try? I use my 'secret' note file on my pc and phone so phatnotes keeps them both sync, very convinient.
5. THANKS AGAIN!

The link does works at my end. Here is it again.
http://www.hfrmobile.com/app_CCrryyppttoo_T1/index.htm
Oops, forgot your original question. You can test the encryption yourself. I didn't try out Phatnotes myself, but you can try to locate the file of which Phatnote stores your notes (either 1 file for all notes, or 1 file per note). Password protect this file, send it over to your PC, open it with your Notepad. If it doesn't show what each and every word that you've typed for that note, it is 'encrypted'. Most amateur people will just use this method to get your secret stuff I guess, unless they know there are information on banking details with £10,000 in it

Hmmm great suggestion!! I just did what you said and the unprotected notes are readable by notepad and the protected notes are just garbled text of mostly "?" and "G" letters. So I guess they do have some form of encryption for those notes then. So how good is the encryption on crypto?

Well, I did a trip to search for the answer for your question of "how good is the encryption on crypto", and it seems that the author is using his way of encrypting the file, which I say ought to be safe enough for everyday usage, but good enough for business/military usage, I guess.
Anyway, while I was looking for the 'answer', I bang my head into this
http://tombo.sourceforge.jp/En/
As this is using the standard 128 blowfish algorithm, which has been proven to be strong and fast. It has both desktop and ppc version, which are interchangable (eg. desktop can decrypt the ppc encrypted file). And, it is free!
I found this too, limited-freeware though. http://www.freewareppc.com/docs/visnotes.shtml
Hmm.. freeware file encryption (AES algorithm): http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/filebarricader2006mobile.shtml
[Update on Tombo]
I did a test drive on it. It is quite alright. It creates a txt file for each of the note you created and put them into structure folder that you made. There are option of making virtual folders as well. So, you can have your notes sync by syncing your My Documents folder, of which you set this Tombo to put all the notes. It encrypts files and have an added feature of scrambling the file name such that people are not able to guess what your file contents are.
However, there are two flaws that I've just found in a 1/2 hour testing
(a) its Unicode encoding is not working. Once you (really) close the application, it will give '?' for all the non-alpha-numeric characters. Weird consider the author is a Japanese.
(b) there isn't an option of wrapping texts without 'dissecting' them.

Looking for custom virtual ROM on HTC One with reward

This is for all the developers out there. Let's see if anyone out there has the talent to get this done. I will pay money for something like this to a developer as well. Here is the goal:
To set up a platform on smartphones that basically comes with two separate partitions. Ideally what would be better would for manufacturers to manufacture a smartphone with two separate flash drives. Say a for a 32gb device they would use two 16gb flash drives and for a 64gb device they would use two 32 gb flash drives. The main objective here is security and privacy from all these invasion of privacy that all these applications on Google Play store require. Usually they require access to your call logs,pictures,files,memory card,SMS messages,contacts list/s,notes,calendars,videos,audio,etc...
What would be nice is for one to have an option to say download an application like Facebook which pretty much requires every permission you can think of to be downloaded on a separate flash drive to where it has pretty much access to nothing except for what you choose to install on that flash drive or that partition. Wechat recently pulled a dirty trick in one of its updates to where one can not completely uninstall the application after installing it on a HTC smartphone.
Would like to have a secure and safe partition or separate flash drive preferably that would allow one to input contacts,photos,SMS messages,notes,calendars,call logs,etc.. That no application could have access to for our own privacy and safety along with security. Something like how one can ru two separate systems on a MacBook computer to where Windows can also run using Paralles?
Any geniuses here no how to do this or get this done?

This doesn't require a genius... This requires resources lol! Nobody can do it other than a manufacturer at all.
1. For 2 seperate NAND chips we would need to recreate it's PCB board, reconnect the ICs and chipsets which can't be done by household tools or by human hands
2. That would require full customization of the filesystem of android which would probably then be blocked by google because it won't follow their convention. Ask Madame Dianne Hackborn regarding this

desiregeek said:
Something like how one can ru two separate systems on a MacBook computer to where Windows can also run using Paralles?
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Yes but when you do that, any Windows app or Mac app can still access anything on both partitions. How is that more secure? You cannot tell android to give app permission to photos on Partition1 but not to Partition2.
I suppose you could have 3 partitions, one that boots and lets you choose which of the other 2 to mount. Who is going to reboot their phone every time they want to switch between E-Mail and FaceBook though? ...if that's what you want, you can just use CWM and restore whichever backup you like, though that will take about 4-min of shutdown/restore/reboot everytime you switch.

What if you use users like in many 4.2.2 Roms. If you want an APP installed with to many access switch to a guest user

retschy said:
What if you use users like in many 4.2.2 Roms. If you want an APP installed with to many access switch to a guest user
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Yes this should be a great solution for dodgy apps. That way they won't have any access to the data located in another users account.

desiregeek said:
To set up a platform on smartphones that basically comes with two separate partitions. Ideally what would be better would for manufacturers to manufacture a smartphone with two separate flash drives. Say a for a 32gb device they would use two 16gb flash drives and for a 64gb device they would use two 32 gb flash drives. The main objective here is security and privacy from all these invasion of privacy that all these applications on Google Play store require. Usually they require access to your call logs,pictures,files,memory card,SMS messages,contacts list/s,notes,calendars,videos,audio,etc...
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Click to collapse
edit: nevermind I thought the OP meant dualboot but he means a virtual machine, though I think this has been done as well on android before

godutch said:
edit: nevermind I thought the OP meant dualboot but he means a virtual machine, though I think this has been done as well on android before
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I guess it would basically be a virtual machine. There has to be a way to where one can separate things like two hard drives where in this case it would be on flash drives. Blackberry released something similar recently on their new OS.
Would be nice to be able to download all the basic applications which these days come with ridiculous permissions of which have access to everything on your smartphone. At times one does not wish to share their call log with Facebook or Whatsapp or Line Naver. One also may not to share their private SMS messages with those applications.
If we could choose where we want things installed it would be great.

rpmccormick said:
Yes but when you do that, any Windows app or Mac app can still access anything on both partitions. How is that more secure? You cannot tell android to give app permission to photos on Partition1 but not to Partition2.
I suppose you could have 3 partitions, one that boots and lets you choose which of the other 2 to mount. Who is going to reboot their phone every time they want to switch between E-Mail and FaceBook though? ...if that's what you want, you can just use CWM and restore whichever backup you like, though that will take about 4-min of shutdown/restore/reboot everytime you switch.
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What if the smartphone came with Operating Systems then on each Flash to where each was separate but you could switch back and forth between each like you can on a Macbook running Paralles. Being on separate Flash drives insures that one can get info from the other.
Seems like these days there is no way of blocking permissions without the application failing to load or run.
I have an HTC One and have Wechat on there. The other day I tried uninstalling it but I was unable to uninstall it as Wechat removed the uninstall option and gave us a downgrade option which leaves Wechat running. You can disable it though. Not sure how Google Play allows for such applications to be put up on Google Play that does not allow the user the ability to uninstall completely if they wanted to uninstall. This is why it would be nice to have a safety or dummy flash drive to separate private info and public info on a smartphone.

Again, what does choosing where something is installed have anything to do with permissions? Even if you swapped SD-Cards, then apps on one couldn't access apps on the other, but both could access everything on the system partition. The only way storing things in 2 different locations adds security, is if you can fully unmount all other locations, which would always require a reboot. Even a virtual-machine running on my PC can still access my PC and all of my network, and my PC along with all of the network can access the VM.
I don't think what you are trying to do (have 2 isolated drives) has anything to do with the goal of security. I don't think the actual security solution (having 2 isolated operating systems and needing to reboot to switch with no cross-access) is anything most people would want to deal with.
I think your best solution is to buy 2 phones.

rpmccormick said:
Even a virtual-machine running on my PC can still access my PC and all of my network, and my PC along with all of the network can access the VM.
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No it can't the virtual machine can only access virtual hardware or the hardware the vm makes available to the os running on the vm

godutch said:
No it can't the virtual machine can only access virtual hardware or the hardware the vm makes available to the os running on the vm
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There has to be a way. Just takes some Einstein to get it done right.

Like this basically..
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/04...efore-you-buy/
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...ung-knox#con02

Android Security Concerns

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction after spending a day reading about mobile phone security. I'm still confused as to what an app can do and how I can limit access. Some answers or a point in the right direction for more information would be helpful.
Apps that are granted permission "Modify/Delete SD Card" can pretty much read/write anything on my device? Could an app go through my sd card and see files, for example, music, movies, other data from different apps; file names/content? I have about 35 apps running on my phone with this access. I'd rather not leave it to "how much I trust the developer" and have some means to limit access to data.
I don't keep national security secrets on my nexus but there is work and personal information that is sensitive and I wouldn't want shared. It looks like if I use android to encrypt my data it only encrypts the /data folder and there doesn't seem to be much in there.
What about securing contact and calendar data? Is this possible? Not as critical as guarding my file data, but still important to me. Thanks.

Yes, files on the external sdcard are not protected, I.e. all apps which have the right to read/write sdcard can read/write everything there. One reason is just the filesystem type: on FAT you don't have access rights. On internal /sdcard it's a bit different, because it's using ext4 as a filesystem, so principally not all apps can read everything, but also here you have the problem that for example the camera, the gallery app, ... need access to the same files and directories. So at the moment you need to trust the apps in a certain way or not to install it at all.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

While it is difficult for someone with limited tech experience, it is plausible to protect your data with measures like XPrivacy or PDroid.
However, if you're looking for an answer without jumping through a few technical hoops, there aren't many good ones unfortunately. The best bet is as you already suggested, that is to be smart about where you browse the net, and only install trusted apps. Always think twice and review permissions carefully for any app even if it's from the Play Store.
And don't forget encryption only works similar to a house door. It's only good if you keep it locked. But if you let the bad guys into your house (i.e., installing a naughty app), it doesn't protect you much. It only keeps them out so long as you don't let them in (physical access). P.S. I'm assuming you're talking about the stock android encryption not actually having individual encrypted files on your device if not then ignore this paragraph (although I'm sure some will disagree that even having SHA-512 AES encrypted files with a extremely complex and long passwords is still not enough to protect data once a malicious user gets their hands on that file.)

Even on the internal SD card, it looks like once I give an app access to "modify/delete" the entire sd card is exposed; did I understand that correctly? It looks like grant access to everything or nothing.
After reading this:
http://appanalysis.org/
It seems that even trusted developers can't be trusted. I don't consider myself a novice user but I'm really surprised at how exposed the data is on phones and tablets. Its like leaving money on your front porch and hoping it isn't too tempting for someone to walk though a broken gate and grab.
Any idea what WP, iOS or BB10 offer in the way of data protection?

TheAltruistic said:
While it is difficult for someone with limited tech experience, it is plausible to protect your data with measures like XPrivacy or PDroid.
However, if you're looking for an answer without jumping through a few technical hoops, there aren't many good ones unfortunately. /QUOTE]
XPrivacy looks good, might be worth rooting for that app.
I'm not as concerned with an app downloading files and using a high level attack on my data. I am concerned about an app where the developer decides to go through my contacts, photos, and files which are unlocked and easily viewed. Then sell the data to whomever that can do whatever. No effort required, no ability to know the data was even accessed and no ability to lock the data. I think like most things, if there is more than a slight effort needed to access the data, they'll move on to something else.
I see Google offers encryption but I can't find information on exactly what is encrypted and if I install an app with say permission to contacts does that give them encrypted access to all contacts? For example, a program that can add a contact via sms I don't want to allow it to read all my contacts, just add a new one.
Maybe Android isn't the right platform for me.
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Click to collapse

mgerbasio said:
TheAltruistic said:
While it is difficult for someone with limited tech experience, it is plausible to protect your data with measures like XPrivacy or PDroid.
However, if you're looking for an answer without jumping through a few technical hoops, there aren't many good ones unfortunately. /QUOTE]
XPrivacy looks good, might be worth rooting for that app.
I'm not as concerned with an app downloading files and using a high level attack on my data. I am concerned about an app where the developer decides to go through my contacts, photos, and files which are unlocked and easily viewed. Then sell the data to whomever that can do whatever. No effort required, no ability to know the data was even accessed and no ability to lock the data. I think like most things, if there is more than a slight effort needed to access the data, they'll move on to something else.
I see Google offers encryption but I can't find information on exactly what is encrypted and if I install an app with say permission to contacts does that give them encrypted access to all contacts? For example, a program that can add a contact via sms I don't want to allow it to read all my contacts, just add a new one.
Maybe Android isn't the right platform for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh don't give up. To be honest at least android tells you when it grants a program certain permissions unlike some other OSes where you're in the dark in terms of security.
As far as I know, and I'm assuming we're talking about the same thing, the type of encryption Android offers only prevents people from gaining unauthorized access to your data if your device is mounted or accessed when your lock screen is up. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong--please do). But if your device is not password protected (e.g., you set lock password to lock every hour and they get it when it's unlocked) then your data can potentially be compromised.
This encryption does not, however, protect your data as you're browsing the internet, or running apps like facebook.
If you're looking for something to protect your data from say facebook finding your GPS location without your permission, or accessing your contacts and doing God knows what with it, then XPrivacy and PDroid (links above) is your answer, and I'd say that's awesome.
I may not play around with an iPhone / iOS enough, but I'm confident enough to say that they don't offer the same privacy protection even from Cydia that you can get from communities like here on XDA. Perhaps for iOS users, ignorance is bliss?
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TheAltruistic said:
mgerbasio said:
Heh don't give up. To be honest at least android tells you when it grants a program certain permissions unlike some other OSes where you're in the dark in terms of security.
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Click to collapse
Thanks again. I appreciate the comments.
All I'm really looking to do is prevent an app downloading all my contacts, photos, movies, files, etc. I have some work data on my tablet that isn't confidential but it is what I would call sensitive. Actually, I rarely use external memory, mostly just use in internal sd card.
It seems all the "good apps" grab more permissions than they need or, the permission they do need to operate gives them way more access than I'd like. I'm not so concerned that I'd start using Tor or duckduckgo, but just trusting a developer with an open door to data is more than I can to leave to chance.
From what I've been reading the sandboxing in iOS and WP provide good security and in BB you can remove permissions from apps; BB10 is still the most secure if you can believe the internet articles. I'd like to see Google make it more clear as to what encryption actually allows and prevents.
There seems to be apps that button up a lot of holes, like photos, but there still are gaping holes.
Click to expand...
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Hi guys,
Any progress? I use PDroid on my smartphone and find it unnerving to see how much and how often data is accessed not only by third party apps but by Google itself. With PDroid you can restrict permissions without bricking the app because it can provide fake data rather than none. I have to say that I am not entirely happy with it though. I hope that Firefox OS will have success in stopping the appification of our devices. Data wise, it is much safer to use web-based services than app-based services.
I think Google's Android is so successful with developers (also) because they can gather so much data. Our smartphones are unfortunately "data gold mines" for the ICT industry.
If you have any progress in improving privacy, safety and security of the Nexus 7 than I'd be happy to read about it.

ENCRYPTION and selling my phone.

Currently I have an S7 Edge, but my companies IT is supplying everyone with iPhones since it was too hard to juggle so many different phones. Well as much as I love Android, I don't want to carry 2 phones around everywhere lol, so I was thinking about selling it as it was mine to begin with and the company just paid my phone bill. IT at work just said factory reset it and you're good to sell, but idk they don't seem like the brightest bulbs.
My work involves a good deal of private information from my clients. So my phone is full of photos, texts, emails, pdfs, etc... of things that my clients would probably be extremely angry about if it got out.
Is there anyway to wipe this phone 100% clean with 0% chance of anything being recovered by anyone?
I saw this review article quote:
I asked Samsung if these new phones were encrypted, like the iPhone (most Android phones aren’t.) Referring to both models, the company said: "Default encryption is turned on for Galaxy S7. Samsung cannot decrypt the user’s encrypted phones. The encryption key is randomly generated for each user and the key is protected with the user’s password."
According to that, it sounds like Samsung themselves couldn't even get my data after I factory reset? Is this true? What exactly do I need to do to get to this point?
I'm not sure what this encryption key is and user password? Is user password just your lockscreen pin?
Reason why I'm worried is I remember people always saying if you delete something its gone! Well I remember 10 years ago my mom formatted her camera SD card on accident and all it took was me hooking it up and googling a free recovery program and BAM I had all the photos back. I imagine technology has advanced ten fold since then. I don't want someone rooting my phone and getting some super program and next thing I know my personal information is out there.
Thanks!

wipe the operating system.
reinstall new operating system with odin or if you have an sd card using stock recovery. make sure that you do not reinstall your gmail account to prevent auto recovery.

Cosmic Blue said:
wipe the operating system.
reinstall new operating system with odin or if you have an sd card using stock recovery. make sure that you do not reinstall your gmail account to prevent auto recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have an SD card. But I'm not sure about anything you said. Is it possible for you to make a guide for me?

which model of do you have.
?
I will point out the correct rom to copy to your sd card and/or computer.
Do you know anything about flashing a phone at all ?

This is what i usually do.
a. delete all files in internal memory with myfiles/any file explorer
b. delete your google account via settings
c. factory reset your device.
that will do.

A factory reset wipes your pin / pattern / password so that in itself makes the encryption key useless even if you use the same pin / pattern / password. Without that key you can still recover files but it will take hundreds of years to break the encryption.
You may see stories like the FBI breaking encryption but thats not strictly true. They break the unlock system which gives them access to the encryption key which decrypts the data.
Safe to say a factory reset will do the job nicely and if you are in the UK, you will be okay under the Data Protection Act as youve done all YOU can to secure the data from recovery. Its up to your IT tech to make sure you are compliant, especially with Bring Your Own Devices policies so any fallback should be on them.
I would question why you havent mentioned Knox as thats like a safe within a safe and you IT tech should be employing it if they let you use BYOD!
Just note that your clients security is only as secure as your password as if anyone gets hold of that password then they have free rein to your files. You did mention a pin code which i hope you will update to a password asap!!
There are 10,000 possible combinations that the digits 0-9 can be arranged to form a 4-digit pin code.
Click to expand...
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36×36×36×36=1679616 distinct passwords of length 4
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Click to collapse
As you can see, a pin has much less combinations than a password and passwords can be even more secure the longer they are and if you include special characters like @ # * etc. Here is a site which you can use to test how easy it would be to crack your pin or password: https://password.kaspersky.com/
My pin would take 15 minutes to crack, my password would take 33 centuries
Sources:
https://password.kaspersky.com/
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/september32012/
http://math.stackexchange.com/quest...-digits-0-9-how-many-combinations-are-possibl

Risks of Unencrypted Fire Tablet?

The fire tablet are one of the few devices that aren't encrypted by default. What are the theoretical and practical risks of physical attacks on these devices? Encryption seems to have noticeable performance hit when enabled on these devices, and want to understand the tradeoffs.

Welcome to XDA.
I would not encrypt it but bare that in mind by how you use it. Keep it physically secured at all times as well.

blackhawk said:
Welcome to XDA.
I would not encrypt it but bare that in mind by how you use it. Keep it physically secured at all times as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ended up encrypting and found the speed serviceable - about as fast as the previous generation unencrypted. However, it might be more susceptible to brute force hacking, especially with just a pin, because when encrypted there is no penalty for failed password entry, whereas there is a 30-second penalty when unencrypted using a wrong password after 5 times. Assuming the most precious thing one has on the tablet is logged into their main email account in an app or browser, I feel like I'm choosing between two scenarios, assuming exploits and social engineering would have the same effect regardless of encryption:
If I encrypt, brute-force hacking becomes easier, since there isn't a penalty to repeated failure when in that mode. Once in, they could simply use my browser session token or email app to cause havoc.
If unencrypted, they could in theory read the data off the tablet, but they would have open the device and have hardware to read the data, know how to remove the session or app data, and put it into a virtual environment where they could cause havoc.
Is that a fair assessment of the situation, and if so, I assume the unencrypted scenarios is more difficult to break, at least for email access. Thoughts?

ZombieParade said:
Thoughts?
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Click to collapse
Yes, Android 5.1 isn't secure. That's it.
with PIN: A brute force attack will get the correct PIN (without penalty) within a few minutes.
w/o PIN: It depends on speed of the USB port how long it takes to create a raw image of /data.

ZombieParade said:
I ended up encrypting and found the speed serviceable
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a full disk encryption. After entering the correct display pattern /data will be mounted decrypted.

ZombieParade said:
I ended up encrypting and found the speed serviceable - about as fast as the previous generation unencrypted. However, it might be more susceptible to brute force hacking, especially with just a pin, because when encrypted there is no penalty for failed password entry, whereas there is a 30-second penalty when unencrypted using a wrong password after 5 times. Assuming the most precious thing one has on the tablet is logged into their main email account in an app or browser, I feel like I'm choosing between two scenarios, assuming exploits and social engineering would have the same effect regardless of encryption:
If I encrypt, brute-force hacking becomes easier, since there isn't a penalty to repeated failure when in that mode. Once in, they could simply use my browser session token or email app to cause havoc.
If unencrypted, they could in theory read the data off the tablet, but they would have open the device and have hardware to read the data, know how to remove the session or app data, and put it into a virtual environment where they could cause havoc.
Is that a fair assessment of the situation, and if so, I assume the unencrypted scenarios is more difficult to break, at least for email access. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Secure the device with ways where you don't bone yourself. You are the most likely to be locked out of the device, not "them" by setting a lock on the device or data. Never, ever encrypt backup data drives!!!
Use the SD card as the data drive; all critical data goes here. Only the apps, DCIM and Download folder go on internal. Do not encrypt SD cards!!!
If you have expandable storage, use it! Get a V30 rated card like Sandisk Extreme. If the phone is dropped/damaged or the OS crashes/burns, the data drive will likely survive. Then regularly backup the card to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC.
Use Android 9 or higher.
Use a good firewall; block any apps that shouldn't need internet service. Examine logs for possible trouble.
Use NextDNS.
Use a good browser like Brave; back out of bad sites, close window, browser, wipe browser cache even data if needed.
Be careful what you install and download. Keep email in the cloud. All downloads go into the Download folder and are open there first before transferring. Scan with Virustotal if appropriate.
Check the Download folder daily for anything you didn't authority; no auto downloads.
Keep trashware off the phone. No social media or sales apps and interactive gaming sites. Interface them by browser login only.
Scan all side loads with Virustotal first and if there's any doubt, don't load it.
Do not allow apps the update if they are running well unless there's a really good reason.
Do not allow Playstore apps to update.
Same goes for the firmware as far as I'm concerned.
Scan with Malwarebytes occasionally. Track down, ID and fix any odd behavior ASAP, never ignore it. If any obvious malware is found do a factory reset if you can't eliminate it completely within a few hours. Zero tolerance. Reset passwords and secure bank accounts etc as required after a factory reset.
This N10+ is still running on Pie, no screen password tap on/off. Last firmware update was 11/2019.
Current load will be 3yo this June. Still fast and stable, no malware in all that time. This device is heavily used and goes all over the internet. Little maintenance or troubleshooting, and very reliable.
This is more or less my plan, it works for me... I use whatever comes in handy.

WoKoschekk said:
Yes, Android 5.1 isn't secure. That's it.
with PIN: A brute force attack will get the correct PIN (without penalty) within a few minutes.
w/o PIN: It depends on speed of the USB port how long it takes to create a raw image of /data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fire OS is now Android 11. In order to read from the USB port a locked device, they'd have to have an unpatched exploit, correct?

ZombieParade said:
Fire OS is now Android 11. In order to read from the USB port a locked device, they'd have to have an unpatched exploit, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android 11 without forced encryption? It's mandatory for devices shipped with Android 6+.
If /data is unencrypted then you're able to dump the partition by using the EDL mode. It creates an raw ext4 image that can be mounted on every Linux environment.
EDL mode = emergency download mode:
When booting a device the primary bootloader (hardcoded on SoC by CPU manufacturer) verifies the extensible bootloader (part of firmware) to load kernel, ramdisk and so on. If verification should fail, the primary bootloader starts the EDL mode. In this state you can use special tools to flash a new bootloader and you also have access to all partitions.
You can manually start EDL mode by a special key combo or with adb reboot edl or by using test points (contacts on your mainboard).

ZombieParade said:
Fire OS is now Android 11. In order to read from the USB port a locked device, they'd have to have an unpatched exploit, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe. Never give someone unfettered physical access to your tab, smartphone, PC, etc unless you trust explicitly.

Depends. if you'd use it like me just for reading ebooks and component datasheets it doesn't really matter if it's encrypted or not. If it's something sensitive i would encrypt it and replace operating system with something more secure than FireOS (i.e LineageOS).