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If I enable phone encryption with password or PIN on my Android Virtual Device, will that actually make the raw NAND images (*.img / *.qcow2) encrypted? Does it render the data in those files inaccessible?

If the *.img and *.qcow2 files are really sector-level-encrypted, is there a script or program to decrypt them outside of the AVD?

I'm not referring to the sdcard img and qcow2 files, but rather the userdata-qemu img and qcow2 files.

Reference:

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    Sector level encryption would be in Android Full Disc Encryption which no longer used for modern devices. Usually now File Based Encryption is used. If it is used in your case you should be able to mount the image but file names and data can be encrypted.
    – Robert
    May 10, 2021 at 18:10
  • @Robert, so the belief is that if encryption is enabled in AVD, that the image files will have their data encrypted. If not by sector, then by file. But with either case the data at rest is not decryptable without the decryption keys and tokens.
    – Dan
    May 10, 2021 at 18:25
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    The Android encryption has been designed to work with a hardware security element as it can be found in ARM CPUs. Such a hardware element is of course missing in the emulator. The main purpose of the emulator is to provide an environment for app development. I would not use it for security critical data.
    – Robert
    May 10, 2021 at 18:31
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    originally the user password was used via key derivation to encrypt the user data. But on modern devices the architecture is more complex and user password is use for authentication against Android Gatekeeper. If I remember correctly the user password is not used for data encryption anymore. Security of encrypted data mainly depends on the hardware security based keystone...
    – Robert
    May 10, 2021 at 21:00
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    You may also check the Genymotion emulator (free for private use). It bases on VirtualBox and VirtualBox has the feature to encrypt virtual drives by a password. I am not sure if disc-encryption can be used with Genymotion but it would be worth a try.
    – Robert
    May 11, 2021 at 7:01

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