Android Manufacturers Are Lying To Their Customers About Security Updates

Security is one of the most important aspects of anyone’s smartphone experience these days, especially those who would rather avoid getting caught off guard by a malware or a hacking incident. With Android being the biggest OS in the world, it’s therefore important that all devices carrying it should be up to date on that aspect. Unfortunately, not only is this not a case with many manufacturers, they are actually lying about it.

As ubiquitous as Android has become, this has caused problems in the matters of actually keeping devices up to date. For the most part, it’s the manufacturer’s job to make sure that firmware and security updates are as streamlined as possible, but this hasn’t been the case for a lot of companies. When German security researchers looked into the problem, it was actually worse than people thought, WIRED reports.

It turns out that not only have some companies failed to update the security firmware of their devices, they have been lying to their customers about just how up to date their smartphones are. The discovery was made by Security Research Labs researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell who presented their findings during the Hack in the Box security conference that happened last Friday.

They basically combed through the patch codes of Android manufacturers going back two years and found that there were gaps in how often security updates are sent. On top of that, the manufacturers would cover up these gaps by telling users that they’re fully covered.

"We find that there's a gap between patching claims and the actual patches installed on a device. It’s small for some devices and pretty significant for others," Nohl tells attendees.

As The Verge notes, this is bad on many levels. Not only are the users left vulnerable to security issues, they aren’t even aware of that fact. This makes them less vigilant and more prone to being careless.