Virtual phones greater data security?

lawman

I'm wondering if the best way to secure data is not having it on your device in the first place.

That way if your phone is physically taken, and even if the password or encryption is bypassed there is no app data to access.

With laptops we can do that with a vps and virtual desktop.

Wondering if development should consider an open source way of doing something similar for more secure phones?

The following is a commercial closed source software that does this so an open source alternative would be perfect if workable?

https://www.hypori.com/

Not sure how feasible it is when data connections are slow or if a mixed approach could be considered keeping some app and data remote and others local?

Thoughts please?

Thx

IDtheTarget

lawman

I don't speak for GrapheneOS, but I am in the network security field. In my humble opinion, your idea is actually less secure than keeping it on the phone.

The data on the phone is protected by the GOS team in multiple ways:

The entire file system is encrypted
The GOS team takes security seriously. In fact, it's their primary focus.
Sometimes they're even able to help out Google in improving security
In fact, one of the two major commercial entities offering servicers to law-enforcement in breaking into phones for forensic purposes says that they can't break into GOS.

Problems with your solution:

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are, by definition, hosted on somebody else's servers, whether they be Google, AWS, their own infrastructure, etc. The problem here is that there's an entire abstraction layer over which you have zero visibility or control. The employees of your hosting service have physical access, which violates the cybersecurity principle of Physical Access Controls. The way I explain this to my chain-of-command is: "If you can touch it, you can hack/own it." At work, when I log into vCenter and open a virtual console into the Virtual Machine, it's just like hooking up a keyboard, mouse and monitor to a physical box. And I can do anything to that VM that a person sitting in front of a physical computer can do, and more.
Cloud misconfigurations are on the rise, and can easily leak all of your information. Note that this isn't restricted to YOUR misconfiguration, Microsoft had a problem with Azure not too long ago where THEY misconfigured some servers and customer data was lost.
As you said, that software is closed-source. You have no way to know what bugs/back-doors/telemetry/etc. is in that software.

There's more, but I haven't had my coffee yet. :-) Basically, the biggest risk in keeping your data on your own device is making sure you're backing up the data (and preferably your configs). That way if your phone is stolen/broken/accidentally wiped you'll be able to recover.

Hope this helps.

GrapheneOS

lawman This is far less secure against data extraction than local data with encryption. It can still be accessed through the local credentials but is also accessible through the servers. It's the direct opposite of better security against data extraction. Running certain code in virtual machines whether local or remote helps with isolation but if it's run on a server then people with control of that server can access it. If you're running everyone in one VM on someone else's server then that's a massive downgrade for security. It's far better to run VMs locally for isolation than on a remote server as long as the phone has enough memory, etc. for it.

lawman

Thanks for the responses

The reason I raised this is it becomes a criminal offense to not provide the phone PIN in certain countries now like UK.

With vps style system, you can delay giving the PIN until vps wiped, unlike the phone which they will always physically have and copy.

That's also why I've pushed so much for stealth modes (as the initial viewing officers aren't tech experts at all and could let you carry on if stealth PIN provided, unlike later tech officers that become involved several weeks or months later if PIN not supplied).

I think GOS focus on technical resilience rather than real world law enforcement processes (which is my field).

I take on board all your points. If there was an option for self hosted VPS (away from personal address) would that be the best of all worlds?

Thanks for the consideration