Qualcomm brings anti-theft kill switch support in Snapdragon 820, 620, 618, 617 and 430

Qualcomm has continued to expand its security features in its Snapdragon chipsets. Today, the US chipmaker announced that its upcoming processors – Snapdragon 820, 620, 618, 617 and 430 will come with an anti-theft kill switch to protect data of smartphone users.

Qualcomm had announced at this year’s CES that it’s going to work with several Android OEM partners to bring this security feature to existing Snapdragon 810 devices. Today, the company revealed how this new feature called SafeSwitch works.

How it works

• If your device is hacked: Qualcomm SafeSwitch technology is built with a hardware-based mechanism that detects when data or software diverges from its certified state. If this happens, the device locks during power-on and a key is needed to unlock it.
• If your device is lost or stolen: When a user reports a device is lost or stolen using third-party software and the kill switch software is triggered, SafeSwitch is designed to lock down the device and its hardware. SafeSwitch allows for the disabling of the modem to prevent the device from accepting incoming calls, or placing calls. With SafeSwitch, a device user or network operator can also set a password remotely, erase and recover data, and locate or lock a lost or stolen device.
• If you want to unlock your device: If your device turns up after being lost or stolen, the secret key originally set up to lock it can remotely unlock the device.

In other words, the new SafeSwitch feature is a combination of hardware and software based technologies. Even if there is a glitch on the software side, the hardware-based kill switch will ensure that the device remains unusable without the secret key.