Google’s Adiantum: Thought About Security of Cheaper Android Smartphone
Day by day the number of cheaper smartphones are using. People are becoming more likely to buy cheaper smartphones every two years than sticking to an expensive one for several years. And it is much better to have a new smartphone every two years in this fast developing world of Android smartphones. So, keeping in mind the popularity of Android smartphones Google has created a special method of encryption for cheap entry-level Android smartphones. This encryption method Google’s Adiantum would be an optional part of Android distributions.
To ensure that all devices are secure in this vulnerable world of the internet is secure Google brought Adiantum. Adiantum is an innovation in cryptography, designed to make storage encryption more efficient for devices without cryptographic acceleration.
According to Google’s latest post, the low-end entry-level Android smartphones do not come with the processing power needed to run Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). AES is the standard storage encryption for normal Android users.
Android runs on a variety of devices featuring a variety of combination of hardware. There is not only Android Smartphones but TVs and smartwatches also have Android. As Android is open source, so some company uses hardware which doesn’t support AES to cut down production cost. According to Google, they are working to change this as they believe encryption is for everyone.
On cheap Android devices, AES runs really slow, which ultimately affects the launch time of an app. This finally results in poor user experience.
Since Android 6.0 Marshmellow Google added the requirements and encryption on most Android devices.
Google mentioned manufacturers can enable Adiantum for either full-disk encryption or file-based encryption. Adiantum will be available for Android devices with Android Pie.
Even though Google’s Adiantum is very new, yet Google is confident about Adiantum’s performance.
