GoKawiilGrapheneOS
GrapheneOS has strong defenses against data extraction. It heavily builds upon the standard security features provided by Android 17 and the most secure hardware available for Android. Currently, only Pixels provide the hardware security features and updates required by GrapheneOS. That's going to change in 2027 thanks to our partnership with Motorola Mobility and progress being made by Qualcomm.
Disk encryption provides strong protection for data. Even the most sophisticated attackers aren't going to be directly breaking it. They either need to exploit the OS while in After First Unlock state or brute force the PIN/password.
Android 16 QPR2 calls for a secure element implementing rate limiting ramping up delays. It's 4 hours after 10 and 41 days after 15. Only 20 attempts are allowed. For usability, It rejects the most recent 5 unique failed attempts early to avoid wasting attempts on repeated errors. GrapheneOS only supports devices implementing the latest generation secure element rate limiting.
https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/authentication/rate-limiting
The secure element on the supported devices also has insider attack resistance. That's implemented by requiring the Owner user to successfully authenticate before the secure element firmware can be updated. A valid signing key and greater version number aren't enough alone. The purpose of this is preventing any government from bypassing the rate limiting by coercing the creation of a firmware update removing the rate limit.
Pixels have used a secure element with an internal timer implementing rate limiting and insider attack resistance since the Pixel 2 launched near the end of 2017. Here's a post about this from back in 2018:
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/05/insider-attack-resistance.html
The secure element and integration into the OS has become far better since then, but it shows this goes back a long way and isn't a new feature.
GrapheneOS also raises the character limit for passwords from 16 to 128. This enables using high entropy diceware passphrases not depending on the secure element rate limiting.
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