Why the NSA Is Right About Periodically Restarting Your Smartphone

You do it because it makes an attacker’s life harder because now I have to find two bugs instead of one.

The entire boot chain of the phone up to the apps you run are verified successively by the component that loads it. A digital signature helps ensure that only trustworthy code ever runs. A bug must be found to bypass these checks to load malware code. For example, a bug in the image code in a web browser might cause loading of code that isn’t checked. This way the malware gets smuggled onto the phone.

This means that if you get hacked via one bug and malware is loaded, the attacker has to work harder to solve the problem of how do I convince the phone to load it again at boot because the code it’s made of isn’t going to be approved code. When you reboot, you are effectively forcing a validation that all the code you have running is authentic, which would exclude the malware. Trick me once sure, can you survive a full pat down? Probably not. It’ll get caught.

Unless I have a second bug to fool the normal code loading systems too, the malware can’t run. You have to go back and trigger the first bug again somehow, which places more strain on the attacker.

Jokes on them, my S22 Ultra restarts in it's own. Even when I don't want it to.

TL;DR:
Restarting your phone once a week can help improve performance and security.

• this is the same for routers and it's commonly known as a power refresh

GrapheneOS has a convenient auto-reboot feature

"you do need to restart your phone regularly to rid it of demons"

typo: "daemons", not "demons".

Samsung phones have an option of scheduled autorestart; I have mine set to restart once every week at a scheduled time.

I remember my old phone had the option to auto reboot and I had it set to like 3am but now I don't see that option on newer phones. My previous phone didn't even have a reboot option I had to shut it down and power it back up

I use Tasker automation that reminds me to reboot after my phone has been up for awhile. I don't think I'd like an auto reboot feature. I don't even like it when I can't postpone a software update until a time convenient for me.

Wait...the NSA did something good. WTF.

My iPhone 13 mini‘s battery is so small that I involuntarily restart it at least once every two weeks

I'm doubtful. I wanna hear more from security experts.

iphones just do weird shit after a while so that you can't go on without a restart. truly smart

Update your spyware regularly

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Forbes uncovered a seriously dated NSA document outlining the best practices for keeping your phone safe from bad actors in the digital space.

The phones depicted are a 2010s-era iPhone with the original push-button Home button and a Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Over a dozen tips are included, ranging from “considering using Biometrics” to “only use original charging cords.” It’s all fundamental stuff you’ve seen before, but the advice that’s got everyone’s ears perked up is the NSA’s suggestion to power your device off and back on weekly.

It’s a simple way to either force a waning software update or clear any background apps and memory leaks that might contribute to a too-hot-too-handle metal phone.

I’m a frequent restarter because I have cell signal issues in my area—a quick reboot usually does the trick, though not without my heart beating rapidly as I wait to see those mobile service bars return.

The Google Pixel doesn’t have a scheduled offering, but there is an option you can toggle on to have the device automatically restart once it receives an over-the-air (OTA) software update.

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finaly the nsa doesn't do something stupid

Oh. I had a habit of taking the battery out of that laggy shit, then turning it on again.

GrapheneOS has an option to restart the phone after a given time without any successful unlock. I have it set to 8 hours, so it reboots every night. Shorter is possible.

A freshly restarted phone is in its safest state. Necessary to input the unlock code, strict minimum required processes running in the background.