Password-based encryption
One of the larger issues with encryption is the management and secure storage of encryption keys. Until now and in the pervious recipes, we have settled for storing the key in SharedPreferences as recommended on the Google developer's blog; however, this is not ideal for rooted devices. On rooted devices, you cannot rely on the Android system security sandbox as the root user has access to all areas. By that we mean, unlike on a unrooted device, other apps can obtain elevated root privileges.
The potential for an insecure app sandbox is an ideal case for password-based encryption (PBE). It offers the ability to create (or more correctly derive) the encryption key at runtime using a passcode/password that is usually supplied ...
Get Android Security Cookbook now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
