Over the past few years, the smartphone industry has grown very vastly. We have seen some revolutionary changes in smartphones like fingerprint sensor, Dual Camera Setup, near bezel-less design and Artificial Intelligence. If we talk about the operating systems that are ruling the smartphone industry, Android surely comes on top. Android is the most used smartphone OS as of now. Most of the people still can’t afford those expensive iOS devices, so they have the only option left i.e. Android.
As a lot of people are using Android OS, the level of security thread issues are also very high, as compared to iOS or even Windows Phone OS. We have heard or read about some very harmful viruses that attacked Android like Ransomware and Stagefright. Now to fix these types of viruses and malware, Google releases Android Security Patch updates for their own phones and releases Open Source Kit for third-party OEMs. We often listen that these OEMs provides security updates on time, or these OEMs are too late to provide updates or don’t provide the updates. But have you ever wondered what these Security Patches are? Well in this article, let’s find out.
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How did it start?
If you recall, earlier Android phones don’t have anything like security updates. Even with the normal updates, Google didn’t specify any vulnerability. They just used to mention ‘other bug fixes’. This was happening till Android 5.1 Lollipop. When 5.1 Lollipop was latest Android version, an extremely harmful thread named as Stagefright attack millions of Android users. With this thread, the hackers were able to control any infected smartphone and can perform any task on that. Now to fix this issue as soon as possible, Google had to release a separate Android update name as Stagefright Fix Update. Google pressured third-party OEMs to release this update to their smartphones.
This thread fix update created a lot of hype amongst the users because an update is named after Stagefright. With this thread, Google started thinking that they should provide more attention to security. And in future, they don’t want to create this situation where users are getting sort of worried, with the name of viruses. So to overcome this issue, Google decided to release monthly updates which were meant to fix the threads and security bugs without mentioning its name. People got to know that Google is now giving monthly security updates, so they stopped worrying about any viruses on their smartphones.
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Why are these ‘Monthly’ Updates?
We get happy when we get a new security patch update. But ever wondered why Google provides these updates on a monthly basis? And not on weekly or random basis? Well, that’s because if Google will release these updates only when required, a lot of hype will get created that why Google released this update? So Google decided to release these updates on the monthly basis. Even if a virus or thread will not attack Android, Google releases the update to ensure that the current Android version is safe.
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How does it work?
Ever wondered what these security updates actually do? The simple answer to this is fixing the bug. But how these updates actually fix the bugs? Well, these updates actually contain some line of codes that make changes to the main OS installed on the phone. These line of codes don’t overwrite the older codes to install new codes, they just get added to the older codes. The advantage of this process is that the OEMs don’t need to install every security patch on all of their smartphones. For example, if an OEM is giving February 2018 security patch to one of their smartphones after December 2017 patch, then the February 2018 patch will automatically get all those lines of codes which January 2018 patch has. In this way, the OEMs can provide security patches to their smartphones at their own convenience.
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Is it necessary to get security patch updates every single month?
In many online forums and communities, many people complain that the respective OEM is not providing security patch updates on time, or they are not giving it every month. But most of them don’t even know whether it is necessary to get security updates every month? Actually, it’s not that much necessary to get security updates every single month. Surely it’s good to get the updates every month to be secure, but if any major virus or thread will attack the Android platform, every OEMs should give the respective updates to everyone. The major reason why many OEMs don’t provide these security patches on a monthly basis is that the software support cost for the particular model, and here the OEMs usually concentrates on their latest and popular devices. In the end, it’s still a good thing to provide timely security patches every single month, or once in two months.
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Final Words:
So after getting to know about this much details about Android Security Patches, what do we learn here? Well, it’s simple that these patches are very important for smartphone safety, without creating any type of hype. In simple words, these security patches are like monthly servicing of the software. Here I know that OEMs should provide monthly updates for their least popular or low-cost phones, but if they provide these updates skipping 1 or even 2 months, don’t just blindly complaint them on forums and customer services.
So now what are your thoughts on all the above points which I mentioned? Did I said something wrong according to you or I am completely right here? Do share your thoughts in the comment section below. Also, stay tuned with us for more information.
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