IOCipher 64-bit builds

 Posted on October 7, 2019  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

IOCipher v0.5 includes fulil 64-bit support and works with the latest SQLCipher versions. This means that the minimum supported SDK version had to be bumped to android-14, which is still older than what Google Play Services and Android Support libraries require. One important thing to note is that newer SQLCipher versions require an upgrade procedure since they changed how the data is encrypted. Since IOCipher does use a SQLCipher database, and IOCipher virtual disks will have to be upgraded. [Read More]
Android  iocipher  security 

IOCipher is the antidote to “Man-in-the-Disk” attack

 Posted on August 17, 2018  |  n8fr8

Recently, at DEFCON 2018, researchers at Check Point announced a new kind of attack made possible by the way many Android apps are implemented. In summary, developers use the shared external storage space in an unsafe manner, by not taking into consideration that other apps also have read and write access to the same space. A malicious app can modify data used by another app, as a vector for compromising that app, causing it to be compromised or crash. [Read More]
defcon2018  iocipher  man-in-the-disk  security  vulnerability 

CipherKit reproducible builds

 Posted on September 21, 2015  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

We have been on a kick recently with making our build process support “reproducible builds” aka “deterministic builds”. What is this reproducible thing? Basically, what that means is that you can run a script and end up with the exact same binary file as our official releases, be it a APK, JAR, AAR, whatever. That lets anyone verify that our releases are produced only from the source in git, without including anything else, whether deliberately or accidentally (like malware). [Read More]
Android  bazaar  cipherkit  deterministic build  faketime  iocipher  martusvmm  reproducible builds  reproducible builds  security 

First working test of IOCipher for Obj-C

 Posted on January 26, 2015  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

Every so often, we revisit our core libraries in the process of improving our existing apps, and creating new ones. IOCipher has become a standard part of our apps since it provides a really easy way to include encrypted file storage in Android apps. And we are now working on spreading it to iOS as well, headed up by Chris Ballinger, with the first preliminary tests of IOCipher for Obj-C. Testing and contributions are most welcome! [Read More]
Android  encryption  full disk encryption  hsm  iocipher  ios  mobile  obj-c  osx  prototype  security  smartcard  sqlcipher 

CipherKit updates: IOCipher and CacheWord

 Posted on September 26, 2014  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

We’ve been on a big kick recently, updating the newest members of our CipherKit family of frameworks: IOCipher and CacheWord. There also are is a little news about the original CipherKit framework: SQLCipher-for-Android. IOCipher v0.2 IOCipher is a library for storing files in an encrypted virtual disk. It’s API is the exact same as java.io for working with files, and it does not need root access. That makes it the sibling of SQLCipher-for-Android, both are native Android APIs that wrap the SQLCipher database. [Read More]
Android  bazaar  cacheword  cipherkit  encryption  iocipher  martusvmm  password management  security 

Keeping data private means it must be truly deletable!

 Posted on August 23, 2013  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

There are lots of apps these days that promise to keep your data secure, and even some that promise to wipe away private information mere seconds or minutes after it has been received. It is one thing to keep data out of view from people you don’t want seeing it, it is also important to be able to truly delete information. Unfortunately computers make it very difficult to make data truly disappear. [Read More]
cacheword  encryption  iocipher  panic button  privacy  psst  secure deletion  security  sqlcipher  wipe 

IOCipher beta: easy encrypted file storage for your Android app

 Posted on February 7, 2013  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

At long last, we are proud to announce the first beta release of IOCipher, an easy framework for providing virtual encrypted disks for Android apps. does not require root or any special permissions at all the API is a drop-in replacement for the standard java.io.File API, so if you have ever worked with files in Java, you already know how to use IOCipher works easiest in an app that stores all files in IOCipher, but using standard java. [Read More]
Android  beta  encryption  iocipher  open source  privacy  psst  secure storage 

report on IOCipher beta dev sprint

 Posted on January 31, 2013  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

We are just wrapping up an intensive dev sprint on IOCipher in order to get the first real beta release out, and it has been a wonderfully productive session on many levels! Before we started this, we had a proof-of-concept project that was crashy and ridiculously slow. We’re talking crashes every 100 or so transactions and 9 minutes to write 2 megs. Abel and I were plodding thru the bugs, trying to find the motivation to dive into the hard problems in the guts of some of the more arcane parts of the code. [Read More]
Android  encryption  iocipher  libsqlfs  open source  psst  sqlcipher 

Sometimes the best solution is a library, not an app

 Posted on August 27, 2012  |  Hans-Christoph Steiner

Our general approach to software development starts with surveying existing solutions that are available and in use, to see if there is already enough of an ecosystem or whether we need to seed that. When there is already an adundance of tools and apps out there, we work to find the good ones, provide feedback and auditing, and then build apps and tools to fill in any gaps. For example, this was our approach in the Open Secure Telephony Network. [Read More]
developer tools  encryption  ffmpeg  frameworks  gnupg  gpg  iocipher  libraries  libsqlfs  orbot  orlib  sqlcipher  tor