Juni 21, 2024

Important: Upcoming changes to Knox SDK

Samsung Knox Team
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At Samsung, we’re dedicated to supporting our enterprise partners while providing industry-leading enterprise device management and security solutions, without compromising the privacy and personal data of Samsung Galaxy device users. In furtherance of our goals, we’re introducing changes that are necessary to upholding our commitment, and to hereby provide advanced notice regarding any changes that may affect our partners. 

Why are we making these changes?

To strengthen device security, and to preserve the privacy and data of Samsung Galaxy device users, we’re making strategic adjustments to prioritize enterprise use cases of the Knox SDK with Android Enterprise (AE) device management.

Knox SDK restrictions on DA apps

With the release of Android 15 (Knox 3.11) in Fall 2024, apps must run as the AE Device Owner (DO) of a fully-managed device, or the Profile Owner (PO) of a work profile, to access the full range of features provided by Knox SDK. Apps running purely in Device Administrator (DA) mode, without running as the DO or PO, do not meet these requirements and will lose access to select Knox SDK methods. 

To see which Knox SDK methods are being restricted with Android 15 (Knox 3.11), please refer to Restricted API methods.

With following releases of Android, we plan to gradually extend this restriction to all Knox SDK methods.

Restrictions to Knox SDK remote control features

Remote control features included in the RemoteDesktop and RemoteInjection classes will also be restricted with Android 15 (Knox 3.11). These features will only be accessible to apps running as the DO or PO, or apps running within a DO or PO-managed environment, with authorization from the IT admin to access remote control features.

For more information, please see Restricted API methods.

Accessibility matrix

The following accessibility matrix shows the different levels of Knox SDK access available to apps of various management modes with Android 15 (Knox 3.11) release.

Knox SDK methods AE(DO/PO) apps DA mode apps Other apps
DA Restricted methods  Accessible Not accessible Not accessible
Remote control methods Accessible

*Accessible

*only within DO/PO environment, with IT admin's permissions

*Accessible 

*only within DO/PO environment, with IT admin's permissions

Other methods Accessible Accessible Not accessible

 

Changes to license management

You may be required to provide the business use case of your app package to generate and manage Knox Platform for Enterprise licenses on the Knox Developer Portal.

For more information, please see the related KBA.

Get support

We understand that these changes can have a significant impact on your services. Please see our FAQ for more information, and feel free to contact us if you need any help during this time of transition.