Samsung has provided multiple layers of protection for the data stored on its smartphones and tablets. Its devices feature biometric authentication, Find My Phone, Samsung Knox, and Secure Wi-Fi capabilities to prevent unwanted use of data by malicious agents. However, it decided to offer a dedicated security chip on the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 +, and Galaxy S20 Ultra.
Today, the company explained how its S3K250AF Security Element (SE) chip acts as a physical barrier against advanced hardware or physical attacks, protecting user data stored on smartphones from hackers and unauthorized persons. Hardware or physical attack is only possible if the hacker has physical access to the phone.
Samsung’s SE turnkey solution prevents malicious intrusions from manipulating the phone’s hardware components, triggering hardware failures, or analyzing electromagnetic or thermal emissions that can undermine smartphone security. The chip provides an isolated space to store confidential data such as biometric details, patterns, PINs, passwords, and even blocks private keys from third-party applications and services.
In addition to continuously encrypting and scrambling confidential data, security chips use physical barriers to defend against physical attacks. It can detect invalid voltage or temperature changes, current/clock error injections, and optical/laser methods to block side-channel attacks. This also makes it impossible for an attacker to reset the error counter against the wrong pattern, password, or PIN attempt to unlock the device.
The S3K250AF security chip in combination with software optimized by Samsung also supports Strongbox Keymaster, i.e. it can securely store private keys and sensitive data from third-party applications (e.g. crypto wallets or password managers). The South Korean smartphone giant claims that its enhanced security solution will provide a convenient mobile experience in the future.