Samsung users beware: Making this mistake will lose all your data You Should Know
Samsung is currently working on the new version of its operating system, One UI 9, which is based on Android 17. The manufacturer has announced a significant change relating to unlocking the device: in future, users will only have 13 attempts to unlock their smartphone using a PIN. After this, that’s it – the device will no longer let users in.
The only way to continue using the phone after that would be to reset it to factory settings, which would result in the loss of all data (unless you have anything backed up to cloud storage).
In doing so, Samsung is going one step further than Google has planned for Android 17, where 20 attempts are allowed. It’s important to note that this refers to the total number of possible PIN entries. After a prolonged waiting period, the count of incorrect entries is not reset.
Anyone who owns a Samsung Galaxy smartphone will therefore need to be even more careful in future not to forget their PIN code. With this change, Samsung aims to improve the security of Galaxy devices, as it makes it more difficult for attackers to gain access to a stolen smartphone using a brute-force method (i.e. trying out random codes).
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
Another change concerns the time intervals between individual failed attempts. After five failed attempts, you must wait one minute before you can enter your PIN again. After six attempts, the wait is five minutes; after seven, 15 minutes; after eight, 30 minutes; and after nine, 90 minutes.
If you reach ten failed attempts, you’ll have to wait a full four hours before you can try again. One more failed attempt and the wait increases to 12 hours. After 12 failed attempts, you’ll have to wait 24 hours before you can make your final attempt, so there are plenty of warnings and time to think.
Your fingerprint might not save you
Anyone who has so far only unlocked their Samsung mobile using their fingerprint needs to be particularly careful: after 72 hours or following a restart (such as after a system update), the device will still require you to enter a PIN.
So anyone who rarely updates or restarts their smartphone (the NSA recommends one restart per week) is more likely to forget their PIN.
Incidentally, this isn’t the only new feature that OneUI 9 will bring. Samsung users will also get a new internet display feature.
