Samsung Knox: How Secure Is Samsung’s Security Network

At this week’s Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event, a section of the presentation was dedicated to Samsung’s security and privacy efforts which Samsung President and Head of Mobile, TM Roh, claimed to be at the center of every decision Samsung makes. Samsung’s Knox is its security framework and comes on virtually every Samsung device, but how effective is it in protecting your data? Samsung has had small-scale data breaches in the past — for example in 2019 when 150 users had their personal data leaked through a technical error — so what makes Knox more effective at defending your data than other options?

When it comes to privacy and cybersecurity it is more important than ever to know whether your gadgets can protect your information, especially as more and more work is done remotely and important information is stored and shared through phones. But assessing how strong Knox is against malicious forces that would take your information and use it for nefarious purposes can be a challenge, especially since mobile companies like Samsung don’t want to talk too much about how it all works, as that may give hackers a leg up. Still, there are a few things we know about Knox, and these things can give users a rough idea of how much they should trust it.

To start, Samsung boasts that it owns every aspect of the supply chain, meaning that no third party can below table sell access to their secure networks. Samsung products also boast the Knox Vault Chip which stores data such as passwords, credit card details, and biometric information away from the rest of the device’s memory and stores it securely. Samsung summarises it as a “vault within a vault”. It even shuts down the entire device if hackers try to physically tamper with the Knox Vault Chip.

Top Of The Line Protection

On top of that, the Samsung Knox also boasts real-time kernel protection. The kernel is essentially the brain of a phone. Having this constantly supervised means that any changes to the kernel’s code are constantly checked for its authenticity. A similar bit of security, DEFEX, works in stopping apps change their administration privileges preventing illegal and critical operations on your mobile device.  There being zero large-scale security breaches related specifically Samsung smartphones, which suggests that Knox is doing its job well. Knox also won the Best Mobile Innovation for Building Trust in the Digital Age award from the Mobile World Congress along with several other security and anti-fraud awards over the years.

Samsung’s competitors, especially Apple, regularly boast about their mobile device security features, but it’s clear that Samsung Knox is also one of the best security systems for smartphones on the market. Android itself might have a history of security incidents related to malware and sketchy apps, but Samsung knows what it’s doing when it comes to on-device security.

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