Factory Reset option is not working properly on Android Devices

The experts from the University of Cambridge have analyzed Factory Reset option from Android mobile phones, which was presented as the safest way of deleting all new personalized settings and sensitive data and permitting the mobile devices to reset to their default factory settings. The results of the analysis were not encouraging at all and the conclusions are alarming.

This Android option is very important because it guarantees to users that the mobile phones or smartphones they sell, recycle or replace with new ones will delete all the personal information and all the sensitive or possible compromising data. Practically, the phones will be like new, when you bought them from the factory. Or at least you thought so. But the reality is slightly different.

According to the researchers team, approximately 500 millions of mobile phones with Android do not delete from the internal memory all the data from users., when the application is run. So, it is possible for hackers to recover text messages, e-mails, information’s from agenda of contacts and even login data. Approximately 630 millions mobile phones with Android can not completely delete the memory card’s content. This means all the personal pictures and movies can be recovered! For this analyze there were used Android versions starting from 2.3.x until Android 4.3. But no one can guarantee the mobile phones with newer Android versions are any safer.

What it was really shocking was that the file that permits Google user to successfully synchronizes contacts agenda, e-mails etc it was recovered by researchers, after running the Factory Reset option. And the same principle applies to Facebook users, to the token files this app is using. But for these cases, the guilty companies are not Google or Facebook but the mobile devices producers, at least, in most of the cases. The producers should include the software drivers which are necessary for the entire delete of Flash memory. Anyway, Google, for instance, has not shown any official point of view regarding these issues, so we still wait for things to be cleared and solved.