Samsung believes there is no privacy without strong security. That’s why every Galaxy device is protected from the chip up by a multi-layered approach, which includes on-device personalisation, user-controlled cloud processing and ecosystem-wide protection through Samsung Knox Matrix. At the core of this system is Samsung Knox Vault, the company’s hardware-based solution for safeguarding your most sensitive information.

Secured at the Hardware Level

Most mobile devices rely solely on software to protect sensitive data. Galaxy devices go further. Knox Vault is a hardware-level security solution that creates a physical barrier between your most private information and everything else. It works like a locked room inside your phone, with its own processor and memory to encrypt sensitive data, with Knox Vault securing the keys.

It pairs a secure processor with dedicated memory, isolating your passwords, PINs, biometrics as well as financial information and cryptographic keys. These are the kinds of details you don’t want anyone else to access, and Knox Vault is built to make sure they stay private. You don’t need to activate or manage it, as it’s always on, working silently in the background, keeping your data safe while you get on with your day.

This is particularly crucial in the age of AI as user concerns are expanding from traditional cybersecurity threats, like viruses and malware – to worries over leaking personal data, such as conversations with your AI assistant. And as AI becomes part of more everyday tasks, the types of data that need protection are also expanding. For example, metadata from your most personal photos not only details the resolution and file format, but also shows the exact location where the image was taken.

This personal metadata is more than just files, it’s information that is deeply connected to your daily life. And in the era of AI, these types of data used to provide personalised suggestions needs to be kept private. Knox Vault helps mitigate these growing concerns by safely storing personal information in a secure, hardware-isolated environment designed to block both physical tampering and remote attacks, ensuring that your data cannot be accessed without approval.

Personalised AI, Protected at the Core

Knox Vault not only provides protection for today’s threats, it also ensures your privacy as mobile experiences continue to evolve. As Galaxy AI becomes more useful, it also becomes more personal, learning how you use your device and adapting to your needs. And because these highly tailored AI experiences rely on deeply personal data, Knox Vault plays a crucial role in keeping that information private and secured.

Galaxy AI ensures privacy by processing tasks directly on-device where possible, keeping data in your hands and off online servers. For example, Audio Eraser,¹ removes background noise from videos or voice recordings without the need for any cloud-based processing — so your personal information stays private. Call Transcript² operates in the same way, keeping your calls organised while ensuring personal conversations stay private by remaining on-device. Knox Vault ensures your data is protected, confidential and secure.

Building on its role in Galaxy AI as the trusted foundation for security and privacy, Knox Vault will expand across Samsung’s growing AI ecosystem as AI becomes more deeply integrated into the user experience. Knox Vault is more than a security feature, it is Galaxy’s promise that no matter how advanced your devices become or how much AI evolves – your privacy is secured.

^[1] Results may vary per video depending on sounds present in the video. Samsung Account login required. Certain types of sound can be detected such as voices, music, wind, nature, crowd and noise. The actual sound detection may vary depending on audio source, and the condition of the video. Accuracy of results is not guaranteed.

^[2]Call Transcript feature requires Samsung Account login. Call recording may not be supported in some countries. Currently available on pre-installed Samsung phones and Voice Record app. Service availability may vary by language or region. Certain languages may require language pack download. Accuracy of results is not guaranteed.

Just as performance metrics and physical measurements are essential to designing customised workout routines for professional athletes, data plays a crucial role in creating personalised AI. As such, Samsung is prioritising data intelligence research to transform vast amounts of data into meaningful and intuitive user experiences.

Samsung Newsroom takes a closer look at how Samsung’s advanced data research and innovative connectivity solutions are pioneering the era of personalised AI.

The Power of Data Intelligence in Personalised AI

A truly personalised AI experience starts with understanding the user. Data intelligence identifies a user’s needs at specific moments based not only on historical device usage data but also on the user’s present context. This enables appropriate services to be delivered in a timely manner. However, there are challenges — for example, users don’t hand in refined reports of their needs and wants; the matching of expected needs and potential services must be carried out in real time; and most of all, personal information must constantly be kept safe.

As Samsung reaches consumers across nearly all daily touchpoints — including work, entertainment, household chores, health and security — the company has the unique opportunity to gain deep insights into user behaviors and preferences.

In order to harness this potential, Samsung has strengthened its data technology capabilities by researching user data collected annually from hundreds of millions of devices and services — all in strict compliance with internal and external regulations. As AI models develop a better understanding of users through data collection, processing and analysis, they can leverage retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to deliver more personalised services for different contexts. By using technologies to connect reliable, logic-based knowledge bases to large language models (LLMs), these AI models access the latest, most reliable information and find the most suitable answers.

As Samsung focuses on technologies that connect data to refine personalised AI experiences, a key question is how can such vast and complex data be managed more effectively and tailored precisely to individual needs? The answer, in part, lies in knowledge graphs.
 

Enhancing AI Experiences With Knowledge Graphs

A knowledge graph is a knowledge representation technology that organises related information in an interconnected graph format, making it easily interpretable for both humans and computers. By defining individual entities within the data and linking them, their relationship can be represented as a “triple” in the form of “subject — predicate — object.” For example, “the capital of South Korea is Seoul” can be represented in the following graph, “South Korea — capital — Seoul.” Various types of knowledge such as people, objects, times and places can be structured in a highly refined manner by connecting numerous entities in this triple format.

Unlike traditional relational databases that fill tables with information, knowledge graphs effectively store data and quickly retrieve information or new inferences as needed.

When combined with Samsung’s on-device AI, knowledge graphs allow users to experience highly customised AI services while protecting sensitive personal data from external exposure. This technology is expected to be applied across various products and devices.

The key to implementing knowledge graphs is the ability to quickly find specific answers from information represented in the graph. Converting constantly changing real-world data into graphs and efficiently extracting information requires complex computations — and as the graphs grow, rapid information retrieval becomes more challenging.

To bolster its capabilities in this area, Samsung acquired Oxford Semantic Technologies in July. Oxford Semantic Technologies, a U.K.-based startup renowned for its knowledge graph technology, specialises in optimising data processing and advanced inference to facilitate swift understanding and precise extraction of information from knowledge graphs.

Samsung has collaborated with Oxford Semantic Technologies on graph databases and ontologies^[1] since 2018, and the recent acquisition is anticipated to create synergy in personalised AI research across Samsung’s product ecosystem. The company plans to develop applications that offer valuable experiences to consumers and explore new research avenues in various areas including the integration of generative AI and knowledge graphs.

Empowering Everyday Life With Data-Driven Insights

Samsung is rapidly incorporating personalised AI features powered by data intelligence across a wide range of products and services to enrich users’ daily lives.

Digital healthcare is one example. The Galaxy Watch7 and Galaxy Ring comprehensively analyse user health data including sleep, exercise and heart rate to offer an Energy Score via the Samsung Health app. Going beyond simple data measurement, this analysis provides an easy-to-understand numeric summary of a user’s daily health status and personalised insights for individual activities. By researching the weighted importance of each factor in the Energy Score based on age and gender, Samsung has developed a more customised approach to health management.

The entertainment experience has also been enhanced through data-driven insights. In the U.S., Gaming Hub — Samsung’s game platform available on its smartphones — uses explainable AI (XAI) to offer personalised game recommendations. Leveraging a model of the user’s preferences, this technology not only recommends games but also explains the reasoning behind each suggestion to help users select the games that suit them best.

Refined AI Experiences With SmartThings

Personalised AI will evolve as more devices connect with each other and acquire usage data from users’ daily lives. At Samsung Developer Conference 2024 (SDC24) in October, Samsung unveiled Home Insight — a service that allows users to manage and control their smart home through SmartThings. The feature analyses users’ lifestyle patterns, device usage history and home conditions to provide real-time reports and tailored recommendations such as turning off devices or utilising specific features based on different situations.

In addition, Samsung has a personalised AI feature to support the well-being and safety of family members in need. Launched in June, SmartThings Family Care allows users to remotely monitor family members and take any necessary actions through SmartThings-connected devices and location-based data. The company plans to expand these AI-connected capabilities to health devices, supporting family health in areas like sleep and diet.

Samsung is advancing technology that allows devices to recognise users and provide seamless, personalised experiences across all connected devices. For example, the company is planning to enable users who have large text mode activated on their smartphones to automatically apply the setting to other devices with a single voice command. Additionally, Samsung is exploring functions that use sensors and devices within the home to detect a user’s location and adjust lighting, temperature and humidity according to individual preferences.

Personalised AI Needs Robust Security

Security is a fundamental requirement for delivering safe, personalised AI. To ensure the protection of personal information and address biases in AI systems, a multi-faceted approach is needed — including improving data processing and model training processes and implementing a rigorous verification process for outputs.

When collecting internal and external data for AI model training, Samsung performs data pre-processing to check and filter for privacy violations. Additionally, the company is strengthening its safety verification of AI outputs by addressing risks related to harm, bias, privacy and jailbreak^[2] vulnerabilities.

Samsung’s Knox Matrix further elevates security in a multi-device connected environment. Using blockchain technology, connected devices can monitor each other for security threats through Trust Chain; securely share user data by transmitting only encrypted information to servers via Credential Sync; and apply consistent security standards across operating systems such as Android, Tizen and Windows with Cross Platform. Samsung plans to expand Knox Matrix to cover its mobile devices, TVs and home appliances.

 
^[1]A search method that finds objects by adding logic such as connection relationships and inclusion relationships.
^[2]Attack methods that bypass safety measures and ethical guidelines of AI models to create malicious content.

Being productive has never been easier, thanks to our devices. From smartphones to smart homes, our lifestyles are now incredibly connected. But as this connectivity grows, so do concerns around device and data safety.

Samsung has made it a priority to give you peace of mind when using connected device ecosystems as Knox Vault, passkeys and Knox Matrix protect you and your digital life.

Knox Vault

At Samsung, we’re constantly exploring ways to add extra layers of security to our products through software and hardware innovations. One example is our hardware-backed Knox Vault which combines a secure processor with secure memory to isolate your most sensitive data — like PINs, passwords and biometrics — from the rest of your device and ensure that no one else can physically or remotely reach your data.
 

But we’re not stopping there. With many people now using multiple devices, we’re expanding Knox Vault to more devices^[1] and bringing the safest mobile experience to a wider audience. You can rest assured that our technologies will constantly evolve as we continue to prioritise keeping you and your personal information safe.

Passkeys

As our device ecosystems continue to grow, we’ve all experienced the bothersome task of logging into apps and websites with passwords that are often long, complicated and easy to forget. But what if they no longer existed, and it was still possible to securely share information across multiple devices?
 

This is our vision for passkeys —digital credentials that can be used for authentication across websites and apps, enabled by Knox Matrix with Galaxy smartphones and tablets.^[2]Passkeys allow users to log in to apps and websites on Galaxy devices using Samsung Pass in Samsung Wallet.^[3] This safe and easy feature enables users to sign in with biometric authentication like fingerprints and eliminates the need to remember current passwords or reset forgotten ones. Convenient without compromising security, passkeys mark a significant step toward a passwordless future.
 

Passkeys offer a faster, easier and more secure device experience. You’ll save time by no longer needing to type your account username into your device — simply select the account you wish to sign into. Once passkeys are registered, it is easy to switch over to a new connected device as there is no need to sign in all over again. Passkeys only work on users’ registered websites and applications, ensuring protection against phishing attacks from malicious sites or apps.

Knox Matrix

Providing new ways to secure identities and credentials for a hyperconnected world, passkeys are part of Credential Sync — a key component of Knox Matrix. We live in an age where we’re surrounded by connected devices from our phones to TVs, and even our refrigerators. This connectivity offers exciting new opportunities but also poses an increased risk of exploitation. Traditional security offerings that protect single devices are no longer enough when one compromised device has the potential to negatively impact others within the same ecosystem — presenting the need for another layer of protection.

That’s why we’ve built Knox Matrix, our next frontier of security and vision for a safer future. The security system is a comprehensive approach that will become increasingly essential as more devices and aspects of our lives become connected — turning your home into a smart shield and keeping you and your ecosystem of connected devices safe. Knox Matrix functions as your private blockchain system where connected devices ensure security at core stages through multi-layered, intelligent threat monitoring with compatible devices cross-checking each other for breaches.

Credential Sync secures your information when moving data from device to device, making it easier to manage multiple logins while encrypting sensitive information. By sharing credentials across devices, we aim to protect your entire device ecosystem — so you never have to sacrifice security for connectivity or convenience.

Knox Matrix offers even more advanced protection for your entire device ecosystem with Trust Chain. In Trust Chain, connected devices monitor each other for security threats, provide notifications if ever attacked and share actions taken to block the threat. Also, Cross Platform SDK allows devices on different operating systems to join Knox Matrix with consistent security standards. This means you can enjoy strong security across the board with Knox Matrix whether your Samsung devices are based on Android, Tizen, Windows or other operating systems.

Samsung wants you to be able to navigate this increasingly connected world freely and comfortably with Samsung Galaxy, both now and in the future. To that end, we’re committed to helping you get the most out of your digital experience with Knox Vault and Knox Matrix. As we head towards a passwordless future, these powerful solutions will ensure you’re always backed up by security you can trust.

[1] Including but not limited to Galaxy S series, Galaxy A series, Galaxy Tab S series and more. Knox Vault availability may vary by model.

[2] Available on Galaxy smartphones and tablets with Samsung Pass, supporting One UI 6 or later.

[3] Availability of Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pass may vary depending on market or model.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has unveiled a range of security innovations across its ecosystem of products and services. With the release of One UI 6, these innovations include updates to Samsung Knox Matrix with passkeys and end-to-end encryption for backed-up and restored Samsung Cloud data and the expansion of Samsung Knox Vault to the wider device ecosystem.

These advancements are engineered for an age of hyperconnectivity, ensuring that as we enter a world where multiple devices connect and share information with each other, the security aspect is never compromised. The updates were announced at the annual Samsung Developer Conference 2023 (SDC23), which brings together developers, creators and designers to explore Samsung’s powerful and seamless connected experiences. At the event, Samsung was able to showcase how these innovations will work to push the industry forward and empower users with more ways to safely do what they love, today and tomorrow.

“The strongest security and privacy innovations can help protect your everyday mobile experience as well as your device,” said Dr. Seungwon Shin, EVP & Head of Security Team, Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. “We strive to keep more users safe in more ways than ever and our latest security innovations mean users can live life with greater options and less effort – so life can truly open up possibilities, now and for years to come.”

Secure Convenience in a Connected World

The release of One UI 6 on Galaxy devices and an update to Samsung Knox Matrix^[1] work to further realise Samsung’s vision of a future where connected devices can protect each other within an ecosystem. Last year, we announced that Knox Matrix would support Trust Chain, which will enable connected devices to intelligently monitor each other for security threats and send notifications to other devices if one is ever attacked.

This meant that if a hacker were to target a device, Knox Matrix could detect the threat and isolate that device from other devices to keep the rest of the system safe. At SDC23, Samsung also announced updates to another key element of Knox Matrix – Credential Sync, which can help protect sensitive information as it moves between multiple devices, such as Samsung Galaxy devices, TVs and Family Hub refrigerators.

With the introduction of One UI 6, Credential Sync brings users an easy and secure way to sync their identities and credentials between their Samsung devices. Also, now available within Credential Sync is end-to-end encryption of backed-up and restored Samsung Cloud data.^[2] This ensures the data can only be encrypted or decrypted on a user’s devices, meaning nobody can see it but the user – even if a server is compromised or account details are stolen. Starting early 2024, Samsung Galaxy devices will also implement end-to-end encryption when users sync their data with Samsung Cloud.^[3]

As part of Credential Sync, Samsung has also developed new ways to manage and secure identities and credentials for a future hyperconnected world in the form of passkeys: digital credentials that can be used as authentication for websites and apps. Through One UI 6, Samsung Pass has been updated with the ability to use passkeys,^[4] marking a significant step towards a passwordless future where passkeys replace traditional passwords to provide an experience that is:

• Faster: Users can save time on typing their account username into their device by instead quickly selecting the account they wish to sign into.
• Easier: Once passkeys are registered, users can easily switch over to a new connected device with no requirement to sign up all over again.
• More secure: Passkeys only work on users’ registered websites and applications, ensuring protection against phishing attacks from malicious sites or apps.

Knox Matrix realises this revolutionary step in the evolution of passwords by enabling a convenient way to share passkeys across multiple devices without sacrificing security. Based on FIDO’s international standards, passkeys enable users to use Samsung Pass on their smartphone to sign into apps and websites through biometric sensors, such as fingerprints. With One UI 6, passkeys are able to be held in escrow until specific conditions are met – like when a PIN, password or lock screen pattern of a user’s previous device is entered on their Samsung Galaxy smartphone. These updated escrow functions within Knox Matrix will eliminate the need for users to remember current passwords or reset forgotten ones, providing convenience and stronger security when sharing credentials between connected devices.

Powerful Security Innovations on More Samsung Devices

Besides innovating to secure the device ecosystems of the future, Samsung is also democratising its most powerful security innovations for its devices today. Samsung Knox Vault is being strengthened through the expansion beyond flagship devices to protect more customers and give them greater choice in the devices they can safely use. Knox Vault can help protect the most critical data on a device, including lock screen information, such as PIN codes, passwords and patterns.

It constructs a secure execution environment that is physically isolated from the system’s main processor and memory and is effective from the moment a user registers their lock screen – thus users can enjoy the security they need without hassle. Knox Vault can help protect users’ security keys which encrypt their private data stored in the device, ensuring total safety – even if the device is lost or stolen.

A hardware-based and tamper-resistant solution, Samsung Knox Vault was created to safeguard a user’s private data against not only software-based hacking, but also hardware attacks using high-end professional tools. Originally launched on Samsung Galaxy flagship devices including S Series, Z Series, S FE Series smartphones and Tab S Series tablets, Knox Vault is being expanded to Samsung Neo QLED 8K TVs in 2023 and the wider Galaxy ecosystem including Galaxy A Series smartphones with One UI 6 or later^[1] in 2024.

Your Secure Ecosystem, Expanded

The wide range of powerful security measures make Samsung Galaxy devices better at ensuring user privacy, addressing the need for convenience in a hyperconnected society with the backing of a true commitment to strong user security. One UI 6 also brings updates to Galaxy’s Security and Privacy Dashboard, making it easier than ever for users to see and control what is happening to their data. The latest security and privacy innovations announced at SDC23 are built on top of Galaxy’s secure foundation: security at every level from the chips up to the apps, real-time threat detection and collaborative protection with trusted partners.

Samsung proudly supports Busan’s bid for the World Expo 2030

Disclaimers:

¹ Samsung Knox Matrix availability may vary by model and/or market.
² Availability timing may vary by app. Support of data backup and restoration for third party apps may vary depending on individual app policies.
³ End-to-end encryption support for Samsung Cloud data sync may vary by app and/or service.
⁴ Available on Galaxy devices with Samsung Pass, supporting One UI 6 or later. Passkey login is available on applications or websites that support passkeys.
⁵ Samsung Knox Vault availability may vary by model.

Learn more about how the Security & Privacy Dashboard helps you manage app permissions on your Galaxy devices here.

* This content was originally published on Bustle on December 22, 2022. Click here for more.

¹ Samsung collaborated with Bustle Digital Group (BDG) to conduct an online survey between November and December 2022 with a sample of 1,000 U.S. residents between 18 and 25 years of age.

* This content was originally published on Bustle on December 23, 2022. Click here for more.

¹ Samsung collaborated with Bustle Digital Group (BDG) to conduct an online survey between November and December 2022 with a sample of 1,000 U.S. residents between 18 and 25 years of age.