Overview
- Samsung confirmed One UI 9 will impose a stepped lockout after successive wrong PINs and will permanently lock a device on the 13th incorrect attempt, with the only recovery being a factory reset that deletes locally stored data.
- The lockout schedule escalates as follows: after five wrong entries a one-minute lock, six wrong five minutes, seven wrong 15 minutes, eight wrong 30 minutes, nine wrong 90 minutes, ten wrong four hours, eleven wrong 12 hours, twelve wrong 24 hours, and the 13th wrong triggers the permanent lock.
- The three new foldables that ship with One UI 9—the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Flip 8—are the first devices affected, and Samsung has not said whether the stricter limit will apply to older Galaxy phones that receive One UI 9 by update.
- Biometric users remain exposed because Android requires PIN entry after a restart or every 72 hours, Samsung cannot recover a forgotten PIN, and users are advised to keep regular backups and know that Factory Reset Protection will require their previously registered Samsung and Google accounts after a reset.
- Samsung’s 13-attempt final lock is a vendor-level tightening beyond Google’s Android 17 approach, which reportedly allows more attempts, and reflects a trade-off between stronger brute-force resistance and greater risk of accidental permanent lock and data loss.