Factory Reset Proven Insecure

Data is recovered from eBay sold mobiles, which has proven factory resets insecure.

The factory reset carried out on Android phones seems to be less secure than the majority thought.

The second hand phones that were bought on eBay that showed how easy it was to recover data, proved this.

Avast Software performed the study, with the aim to show just how easy it was to find personal data on factory reset phones.

From the total 20 phones they brought, 40,000 stored photos were retrieved as well as 750 emails, 250 contact names and email addresses, 1,000 Google searches, four of the previous owner’s identities, and one completed loan application.

Google responded to the findings saying, “This research looks to be based on old devices and versions (pre-Android 3.0) and does not reflect the security protections in Android versions that are used by the vast majority of users.”

Google also offered advice, “If you sell or dispose of your device, we recommend you enable encryption on your device and apply a factory reset beforehand; this has been available on Android for over three years.”

You can find the encryption option in the Settings menu under the Security section.