{"id":12008,"date":"2020-08-01T10:10:35","date_gmt":"2020-08-01T10:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fastestvpn.com\/resources\/?p=12008"},"modified":"2025-05-21T11:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T11:30:49","slug":"wipe-your-android-smartphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fastestvpn.com\/resources\/wipe-your-android-smartphone\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Completely Wipe Your Android Smartphone Before Selling it","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

Phones are an essential aspect of everyday life. They began as communication tools with very straightforward functions, but now deliver powerful features in the palm of our hands. The evolution of phones into smartphones brought features that enabled people to do much more than just call and messages. Today, smartphones are used to store high-resolution photos, videos, games, social networking apps, and maybe apps that hold important information such as health data.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

Your smartphone holds vital information that can be retrieved and used against you. If you plan to sell your smartphone, there are a few things you must do before putting it up for sale or handing it over to the new owner.<\/p>\n

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Why You Should Wipe Your Android Smartphone<\/h2>\n

Smartphones are mini-computers with expansive storage. Gone are the days when mobile phone storage was in mere megabytes. We have entered an evolution where smartphones have up to 1 terabyte of memory. The increase in storage invites all sorts of data which is not limited to photos and videos.<\/p>\n

It would come as a surprise, but a lot of people use the native note app to store sensitive information such as passwords for social networking websites and bank accounts. It presents a huge security risk because if someone had access to your phone, they would be able to extract that data, even if you have factory reset it. It brings us to the cusp of the problem that conventional means of wiping data is not enough.<\/p>\n

Anti-virus developer Avast ran an experiment<\/a> that included 20 Android phones bought from the online marketplace website eBay. Avast was able to recover data easily with nothing but conventional data recovery software. Data recovered included photos \u2013 including of children, compromising photos of men and women, Google search data, text messages and emails, email addresses, contacts, information about previous owners, and even a loan application.<\/p>\n

It presents an alarming picture to everyone who owns a smartphone. Anyone with sufficient knowledge can extract data off used Android phones for any ill attempt.<\/p>\n

Phishing<\/a> is a form of fraudulent practice that tricks people into giving up personal information or clicking a malicious link. A successful Phishing attempt relies on Pretexting<\/a>. You can learn more about Pretexting in our blog, but to provide a brief explanation, it\u2019s a social engineering technique that involves collecting information on a target. With such data available on used phones, malicious actors can implement techniques to lure you. Or worse, compromising photos can lead to blackmail.<\/p>\n

Factory Reset is Not Enough<\/h3>\n

Avast also found out that simple Factory Reset is not enough to prevent data recovery. It\u2019s a feature in Android phones that lets the user return the phone to its factory settings by wiping everything in the storage.<\/p>\n

When you delete something using the traditional method, the system forgets <\/em>the location of the data; it doesn\u2019t actually erase the bits stored. Hence, it is possible to recover data after it has been presumably deleted. The solution to this is filling the storage with new data so that deleted data gets overwritten.<\/p>\n

Preparing to Sell Your Phone<\/h3>\n

Once you have decided to sell the phone, there are a few things we need to do. The first step is to backup everything on the cloud. The new device will pick up the backup when you sign-in to your Google account. Each manufacturer has different menus that require different navigation instructions. The search function in Android\u2019s setting app should point you to the option.<\/p>\n

But, this is how it plays out for stock Android: <\/strong><\/p>\n