Audience
People who store sensitive personal files on their iPhone, such as private photos, legal or financial documents, and personal recordings. Also useful for anyone who shares a device with others and wants a second, unlisted vault, for people who travel and may be asked to unlock their phone, and for those who already use hardware security keys like YubiKey for two-factor authentication elsewhere.
About ArkWarden
ArkWarden is a private vault for iPhone that stores photos, videos, documents, and audio files.
Most vault apps hide files behind a lock screen. ArkWarden encrypts every file individually, using a key derived from a pattern you draw, so it is not just a lock screen in front of already-decrypted files. A second factor can be added: a YubiKey hardware security key over NFC, Face ID, Touch ID, or a separate PIN.
Files are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. Keys are derived using PBKDF2-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations with a random salt per vault. Vault metadata is encrypted separately with ChaCha20-Poly1305. A recovery phrase generated during setup restores access if the pattern is forgotten.
The encryption code that protects vault files is open source and published on GitHub, so these claims can be checked against the implementation.
No account, no email address, no server. All data stays on the device. An optional encrypted iCloud backup is available, where only user holds the key.
