Encryption on iPhone without a lock screen password

Question

Is encryption on iPhone enabled by default even if there is no lock screen password?

Quoth Apple: For better security, set a passcode that needs to be entered to unlock iPhone when you turn it on or wake it. Setting a passcode also turns on data protection, which encrypts your iPhone data with 256-bit AES encryption. (Some apps may opt out of using data protection.) — IconDaemon, Jun 12 '22 at 19:29

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 12 '22 at 18:34

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It depends on what you mean with encryption. The filesystem is encrypted at all times, even though it doesn't look like that to apps: to apps, the files appear normal but they are always stored encrypted on the flash storage.

Content in the keychain may be encrypted in memory or not, but access permissions may be different depending on whether the device is locked or not. Developers can mark each entry their apps write to the keychain with the required permissions (see the Accessibility Values section).

All of this is completely independent of your device password.

The Apple Apple Platform Security Guide (see also the main page) has a lot of details about the security architectures. Unfortunately, I couldn't find details about purely local keychain content, but iCloud keychain content is encrypted using a key derived from your account password and a device-local key stored in the Secure Enclace. See the whole "iCloud keychain" chapter and in particular, the "How a user’s other devices are added to the syncing circle" chapter for details. I suspect the local keychain content is also protected by the same device-local key but this is just a guess, I'm afraid.

answered Jun 12 '22 at 18:34

DarkDust

3,186

I am not inquiring about icloud, just the apps and data and files on the device itself. So this stuff is encrypted even if there is no passcode and factory reset will obscure the data? – Iphoneuser Jun 12 '22 at 19:32
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@Iphoneuser The answer to that question is yes. – jksoegaard Jun 12 '22 at 21:03
Thank you @jksoegaard. Do you know of any documentation on this? Thanks again. – Iphoneuser Jun 12 '22 at 23:16
Yes, the Apple Platform Security Guide. – jksoegaard Jun 12 '22 at 23:33
Do you have a link or quote from this resource? And this is true even if "data protection is enabled" is not present due to lack of passcode? Thank you again for your help. – Iphoneuser Jun 12 '22 at 23:39
@Iphoneuser: The Apple Platform Security Guide is linked in my answer. – DarkDust Jun 13 '22 at 11:08

Encryption on iPhone without a lock screen password

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