Improve device security with Advanced Protection

When you turn on Advanced Protection, you get the strongest security and privacy features to protect you and your device against online attacks, harmful apps, and data risks.

This feature offers several benefits:

• Comprehensive protection, minimal disruption: Advanced Protection gives you the option to equip your devices with Android’s most effective security features for proactive defense, with a user-friendly and low-friction experience.
• Easy activation: Advanced Protection makes security easy and accessible. You don’t need to be a security expert to benefit from enhanced security.
• Defense-in-depth: Once a user turns on Advanced Protection, the system prevents accidental or malicious disablement of the individual security features under the Advanced Protection umbrella. This reflects a "defense-in-depth" strategy, where multiple security layers work together.
• Seamless security integration with apps: Advanced Protection acts as a single control point that enables important security settings across many of your favorite Google apps, including Chrome, Google Message, and Phone by Google. Advanced Protection will also incorporate third-party applications that choose to integrate in the future. If you’re a developer and would like to integrate your app with Advanced Protection, learn how to integrate with Advanced Protection Mode.

Turn on Device protection

Important:

• Before you turn on the Advanced Protection feature, a screen lock is required.
• When you turn on Device protection, you may need to reboot your device.

1. Open your device’s Settings app.
2. To open the Advanced Protection page:
   • Through the Settings app:
     1. Tap Security & Privacy.
     2. Under “Other settings,” tap Advanced Protection.
   • Through the Google settings:
     1. Tap Google 👁 and then
        All services.
     2. Under “Personal and device safety,” tap Advanced Protection.
3. Under “Advanced Protection,” turn on Device protection.
4. On the "Setup Device Protection" prompt, you can turn on Intrusion Logging or skip it.
   • If you turn on Intrusion Logging, you'll need to choose a Google Account for where the encrypted device logs will be backed-up.
5. Select Turn on.
   • On some devices, you may be prompted to “Restart" or “Restart later,” which indicates that some features require a reboot to turn on.
   • If you select “Restart later,” you can restart your device under the “Advanced Protection” page. To restart your device, tap Restart now.

To enroll your Google Account in Advanced Protection:

1. Under “Advanced Protection,” tap Account protection.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Tip: If you turn off your screen lock after you turn on Advanced Protection, the program remains active. Some protections might not function optimally and a warning will display to notify you about this limitation.

Turn off Device protection

Important:

• When Advanced Protection is turned off, it might require a device reboot to revert some security settings. Once Advanced Protection is off, the settings it covered revert to their original state from before you turned it on.
• If you enrolled your Google Account in Account Protection, some protections may continue to be turned on even after you turn off Device protection. Learn how to unenroll from Account Protection.

1. Open your device's Settings 👁 Image
   .
2. To open the Advanced Protection page:
   • Through the Settings app:
     1. Tap Security & Privacy.
     2. Under “Other settings,” tap Advanced Protection.
   • Through the Google settings:
     1. Tap Google 👁 and then
        All services.
     2. Under “Personal and device safety,” tap Advanced Protection.
3. Under “Advanced Protection,” turn off Device protection.
4. Authenticate through Biometrics or PIN.
   • If you’re enrolled into Account protection, tap Continue before you authenticate.
   • On some devices, you may be prompted to “Restart" or "Restart later” indicating that some features require a reboot to turn off.

About Advanced Protection

Review protections offered by Advanced Protection.

• Apps:
  • Google Play Protect: Android's built-in malware and unwanted software protection, on by default for all devices, checks your apps and devices for harmful behavior. When Advanced Protection is on, this cannot be turned off. Learn how Google Play Protect helps keep your apps safe and data private.
  • Unknown Apps: Advanced Protection will block the installation of apps from unknown sources and will block updates for apps originally installed from unknown sources. Apps from unknown sources may not be vetted and can carry a higher risk of harm.
  • Memory Tagging Extension (MTE): For supported apps, MTE will help prevent apps from corrupting memory. Learn more about Arm Memory Tagging Extension (MTE).
  • Accessibility tools: Restricts accessibility services to verified accessibility tools. This minimizes risk from malicious apps.
• Device safety:
  • Theft Detection Lock: Your device automatically locks if it detects suspicious activity indicative of theft. Learn more about Theft Detection Lock.
  • Offline Device Lock: Your unlocked device automatically locks itself if it goes offline for a prolonged period. Learn more about Offline Device Lock.
  • Inactivity Reboot: Automatically reboot your phone if it remains locked for 72 hours. The process of rebooting will make user data unreadable until a fresh unlock takes place.
  • USB Protection: Secure your Android device with USB Protection. When your screen is locked, it protects your device from unauthorized access through a USB connection. Learn how to protect your Android device from USB threats with Advanced Protection Mode.
  • Failed Authentication Lock: After repeated failed authentication attempts in your apps and settings, your device will lock automatically.
  • Watch Unlock: Watch Unlock is restricted to help prevent unauthorized access by stopping your phone from automatically unlocking when a watch is nearby.
• Messages:
  • Spam & Scam Protection: Google Messages' Scam Protection and Spam Protection helps you identify and avoid unwanted and potentially harmful messages. Learn how Google protects your privacy with spam detection.
  • Unsafe Links: You receive warnings about links from unknown users in Google Messages. This helps avoid phishing attempts and malicious websites.
  • Scam Detection: Advanced Protection requires Scam Detection to be turned on to help defend against phishing and harmful messages. The feature monitors chat message notifications from supported apps and warns you about likely scams. Learn more about Scam Detection.
• Network:
  • 2G Network Protection: For supported devices, Advanced Protection prevents connections to less secure 2G networks. This may prevent your device from connecting to a cellular network in areas where only 2G coverage is available.
• Phone by Google:
  • Caller ID & Spam: Identify known spam numbers in Phone by Google before you even answer the phone.
  • Automatic Call Screen: In supported regions, an AI assistant screens incoming calls. It automatically declines identified spam. Learn how to screen your calls before you answer them.
• Security Investigation:
  • Intrusion Logging: This optional, privacy-preserving feature allows for in-depth security investigations if a compromise is ever suspected. Your security logs are stored in the cloud with end-to-end encryption, which puts you in total control of your security info. Learn how to log your Android device activity with Advanced Protection.
• Web:
  • Android Safe Browsing: Android Safe Browsing Live Threat Protection blocks phishing attacks from fast-emerging malicious websites.
  • Chrome Browsing: To ensure safer browsing, Chrome automatically enforces HTTPS for all website connections when possible.
  • Javascript Protections: The Javascript optimizer turns off in Chrome, reducing potential security exposure.
  • Chrome WebGPU: Advanced Protection turns off WebGPU in Chrome, an advanced graphics technology . This helps protect your device against certain security threats and risk.

Find Apps that checked for Device protection

You can access “Apps that checked for Device protection” feature in Advanced Protection settings on your Android 16 device only.

This feature lists the applications that can check the status of Device protection.

To find Apps that checked for Device protection:

1. Open your device’s Settings app.
2. To open the Apps that checked for Device protection page:
   • Through the Settings app:
     1. Tap Security & Privacy 👁 and then
        Advanced Protection.
     2. Scroll to the footer.
     3. Tap Apps that checked for Device protection.
   • Through the Google settings:
     1. Tap Google Settings 👁 and then
        All services 👁 and then
        Advanced Protection.
     2. Scroll to the footer.
     3. Tap Apps that checked for Device protection.

Related resources

• Advanced Protection Mode
• How Google protects your privacy with spam detection
• Log your Android device activity with Advanced Protection
• Learn more about Google Advanced Protection Program