Google’s Adiantum will bring file encryption to low-end Android devices

Google’s Adiantum will bring file encryption to low-end Android devices

“Current Android-based smart devices and low-end phones do not encrypt locally stored data efficiently”

Google has announced a new tool called Adiantum that focuses on bringing local file encryption to low-end Android phones, smart TVs, smartwatches, and other devices. Adiantum has been launched as part of the Safer Internet Day by Google, even though the day has come and gone.

Devices with low-end hardware do not support the Advanced Encryption Standard or AES. Adiantum has been built for such devices that use processors with an ARM Cortex-A7 core. Most Android smartwatches and smart TVs use this chipset and do not feature any kind of local file encryption. The processor cannot provide encryption without slowing down the OS. This would affect the user experience and cause apps to load much slower as well.

Credit - Google
Credit – Google

“To solve this problem, we have designed a new encryption mode called Adiantum. Adiantum allows us to use the ChaCha stream cipher in a length-preserving mode, by adapting ideas from AES-based proposals for length-preserving encryption such as HCTR and HCH. On ARM Cortex-A7, Adiantum encryption and decryption on 4096-byte sectors is about 10.6 cycles per byte, around 5x faster than AES-256-XTS,” Google said.

Adiantum also uses work that was used to make HTTPS a standard on all devices. It will help all the new IoT smart devices to make their hardware more secure. IoT devices use low-end hardware to save on cost and, thus, do not really provide any level of security. Google has added a benchmarking suite, test vectors and reference codes on Github. It is urging OEMs to start using Adiantum and provide higher level of local file encryption and full-disk encryption on devices that run Android Pie. 

Google also states in a blog post that Adiantum will be integrated in to Android Q, its next mobile operating system. It will update the Android Compatibility Definition Document to require all new Android devices to be encrypted using one of the ‘allowed encryption algorithms’. According to Google, this should make newer devices more secure than before and help users to go online without worrying about their data being stolen.