reMarkable 2 Security Overview

In today’s world, corporate and personal security are critical and the careful use of the reMarkable 2 paper tablet can balance that goal (despite some hardware and software shortcomings). Properly configuring your device and protecting it will help increase your security posture.

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Why be interested in this review

I’ve been using the reMarkable 2 paper tablet professionally for over three years now and have been doing so in relatively sensitive environments (private equity owned companies, aerospace & defense). During that time, I’ve been using my reMarkable in a way that treads the line between a security violation and maximizing the usefulness of this focus-inspiring tool.

reMarkable 2 tablet level security

You should treat your reMarkable 2 as you would any notebook – the device is not encrypted (though this is on our wish list for the reMarkable 3). reMarkable does support a 4-digit passcode, which provides some protection for a casual passerby opening your device. Since the device isn’t encrypted, a more technically savvy could access the device through it’s USB port

Source on lack of device encryption

reMarkable transmission (sync) security

reMarkable says that transmission is encrypted (reference here), but doesn’t provide any details. This is the sync between your tablet and the Google Cloud backend (which runs Connect).

reMarkable Connect security (cloud)

reMarkable uses the Google Cloud as the hosted provider for their sync and Connect features. This means that if you are utilizing the Connect service (which we recommend), your notebooks and PDFs will be stored in a Google Cloud datacenter. Your data is secured through encryption while at rest in a Google datacenter, as well as in-transit during syncing between redundant storage locations.

While I’m far from an expert on cloud cybersecurity, Google is known as a highly trusted and competent cloud provider. They utilize FIPS 140-2 encryption and have a host of physical and digital security measures in place.

Actions you can take to make your reMarkable more secure

Device configuration / usage changes

• Disable WiFi when not in use (instructions here)
• Enable the 4-digit passcode (instructions below)
• Only sync your reMarkable through trusted WiFi networks (or through your phone hotspot)

Make good decisions about how you use your reMarkable

• Don’t store truly sensitive documents on our reMarkable – This should go without saying, but if a document (generally a PDF), it likely shouldn’t go on your reMarkable. This could be ITAR, HIPPA, or just confidential corporate documents.
• Be careful about exporting Power Point presentations – in many corporate IT environments, the reMarkable plugin will be disabled (work around discussed here). This doesn’t alleviate you from the responsibility of making sure that you’re only exporting documents that do no require high security.
• Protect your reMarkable as you would a notebook with sensitive information – while the 4-digit passcode is a good start, a sophisticated adversary could easily ‘crack’ the reMarkable to gain access to your files. That means you can’t give potential bad guys access to your device.

Conclusion on reMarkable 2 security

Overall, the looser-than-ideal security shouldn’t dissuade most use cases of the reMarkable 2 tablet. If you take basic security measures with your device and make good decisions about what to store on the device/cloud, you should be good to go.

How do I enable the reMarkable passcode?

To enable the reMarkable Passcode, navigate to the Menu (the top left or right icon).

Then click on Settings

Then click Security

From here, you can set the passcode you’d like to use