ios pList security

Question

I'm just getting into saving data from my game into a .plist, but I'm a bit unclear on how secure that is.

I'll be saving the players entire game state (including tile map data) in a plist(s). As I understand it you can't modify a plist in the bundle, but all the example code i've seen creates a new dynamic plist which is stored in the documents? is this easily changeable by the player from their phone?

Answer 1

The plist files can be easily modified even without a jailbreak -

1. iExplorer allows to browse the iPhone application folders over an USB connection. In this case, the plist file can be copied from the iPhone to a computer, modified and loaded into iPhone.
2. Plist files are stored unencrypted on the backup. So the file can be modified in the backup and restored into iPhone.

Use keychain for better security. To make it more secure, use custom crypto and encrypt the game state before storing it on the device.

Answer 2

is this easily changeable by the player from their phone?

Only if they have access to it - a fact of which the prerequisite is the phone being jailbroken. But in this case, yes they can modify it easily.