Your Samsung Galaxy Now Has Two New Security Features
On Wednesday, Samsung published a blog post in The Knox Journals highlighting two new security features: confidential sharing in Quick Share and improved data protection for data stored in Samsung Cloud. If you have a Samsung Galaxy device, especially a Galaxy S24, you can try out these two new security features right now.
Private access in Quick Share
Samsung’s Quick Share feature, which lets you instantly send files to up to five other Android devices, is getting a privacy update. Private Sharing works with Quick Share to protect your privacy when you share files with other devices in multiple ways.
With it, you can select specific contacts who can actually view the files you send, so that those contacts can’t share your files with anyone else. You can choose how long shared files remain accessible to others; after this period, access to those files expires. You can also make these files read-only and block screenshots so recipients can’t edit or change the files you send, and you can see when they received and opened the file.
With this feature, you can share up to 20 files at a time, as long as the file size is less than 200MB. Samsung claims that all Private Sharing files are encrypted.
You can use private sharing in the same way as quick sharing: select the file you want to send, then click Share . From here, tap Quick Share , then tap the three dots to open the expanded menu, select Enable Private Share , and send. Once you upload the file or files, you will be able to change any permissions.
The only downside here is that this feature only works with Samsung devices: while Quick Share is compatible with other Android devices, you won’t be able to use Private Sharing unless the recipients also rock Samsung phones or tablets.
Samsung has talked about sharing sensitive information in Quick Share content before, so this isn’t a new idea. But it seems that this is already happening.
Improved data protection
Samsung also announced enhanced protection for the data you store in Samsung Cloud – provided you have a Galaxy S24. When Enhanced Data Protection is enabled on your Galaxy S24, the data you save to Samsung Cloud is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE), meaning only you can access that data from the respective device. (Even Samsung doesn’t have access to E2EE data.)
You can enable enhanced data protection in the Samsung Cloud app. From here, tap the three dots to open the advanced menu, then select Settings > Advanced data protection . (You can also find options under Security & Privacy in your Galaxy device settings.) Here, you can choose whether to encrypt your phone’s backup data, synced data, or both.
When you set up advanced data protection, Samsung will provide you with a recovery code that you need to write down. Don’t Lose This : If you lose your E2EE device, you will need this code to recover your data. Without this, you will lose all encrypted data forever.