Samsung Knox: What is it and how does it work?

Samsung currently increasingly trying to expand its customer base in the business arena into it. To this end, the Group has recently Knox developed, which allows workers to use their own smartphone for internal business purposes, without them or the company have to worry about security vulnerabilities or malware. What exactly Knox and how it works, we have summarized in this article.

Knox - What exactly is it?

To make personal devices for corporate use, fit, Samsung has developed in 2013 Knox. Although Knox is currently only available in Galaxy S5, S4 and S3, as well as on the score 2 and 3, but should be compatible in the future with all Samsung devices. Knox (named after the U.S. Army post Fort Knox in the U.S.) is a data protection solution that protects the company's internal, sensitive data from being accessed from the outside.

For business data on contacts or appointments may be extremely confidential

If the program is installed on a Samsung device, you can access its own homescreen icon on Knox. By the start of the program, leading eventually to the secure environment of Knox. This is completely separate from the actual operating system of your smartphone. It's almost as if you possessed two smartphones in one, which are completely different in terms of operating system, interface, homescreen and launcher however. Although Knox protects confidential data from external attacks, but can not access the private area of ​​the phone in the regression. let alone read or use information from this system.

What can Knox?

Knox is an operating system-matryoshka can be stored and saved from the outside in-house data without access. Also you can crop the Knox operating system on its own Bedüfnisse through various tools and features. So you can, for example, can automatically turn off the camera when the user enters the premises of the company. Likewise, Knox protects the Firnmennetzwerk against attacks from the outside, as well as viruses and malware. These Knox has several tools: 

Encrypted verde stored on the smartphone data: On Device Encryption
Trust zone: Verified at start-up, that no malware is present
Container Knox: Prevents data leaks via other apps
Knox Apps: From Knox proposed, protected apps, widgets and Launcher
VPN: secure the data transmitted via VPN on your Smartphone
Security Enhancements (SE): Ensures that nobody has access to read and write your data has

Security solution Knox. 

Samsung Knox is based on Security Enhanced Android (SE Android), which was originally developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) and is wahrschscheinlich have a bitter taste for many German users. The fact that the data stored at Knox but can not be accessed by the NSA via the back door, was repeatedly assured.

Rooting - the crux of the Knox

On the question of whether one can rooten a Knox-compatible Android device, you have to say: Yes and no. On the technical side, it would be possible to root the private operating system. In the secure area of ​​Knox but it would not do; a possible root would have to be discussed with the administrator of the company, so as to avoid the exclusion of the device.

Conclusion

Of course, Samsung's effort to make its own devices relevant for safer systems for the business world, is a good approach and reached in terms of industrial espionage an important step. However, Knox seems to be administratively onerous by its rigid and inflexible appearing sub-operating system. It is also a pity that the security is cropped due to the open nature of Android and root is more likely to be treated with caution, because it restricts the user a. It would be desirable that Samsung strikes a balance in this regard, although it guarantees security, the freedoms of the users in the same step but does not cut.