Android Patches Can Skip a Beat

When a device isn't patched to the most current OS level, it tends to be bad from a security viewpoint. When the device lies to you about it, claiming up-to-date software while remaining unpatched, it's much, much worse. "Much worse" is the state many Android owners find themselves in, according to two years of research by Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell of Security Research Labs (SRL).

Nohl and Lell found that Android patching practices are a crazy quilt of practices ranging from fully up to date to woefully behind patch versions to, in the worst cases, woefully behind while telling the users that they are up to date. The problem for users is that there's no one good way to tell the camp in which a device resides.

According to an article in Wired, SRL tested the firmware of 1,200 phones, from more than a dozen phone manufacturers, for every Android patch released in 2017. They found that a single vendor — Google — provided every patch for every device. All the other vendors, from a list that ranged from Samsung and Motorola to ZTE and TCL, missed at least some of the available patches. Worse, a smattering of devices from each of these vendors failed to install patches even though they told the user that software had been updated.

Now, there can be legitimate reasons for a user, whether individual or company, to skip a patch or delay its rollout. Patches may break individual corporate apps, change device or app behavior, or cause massive device slowdowns. The point is that the choice of whether to install a given patch or update rightly rests with the user, not the vendor.

There can also be legitimate reasons for a vendor to skip a patch or update. Android exists as an ecosystem existing on a staggering number of different hardware platforms, each of which must reach its own separate accord with changes to the operating system. If a vendor finds that a particular patch is incompatible with its hardware, then it can sit out a round and make up any security issues in later versions.

When a vendor chooses not to provide an update but revises the software date to make it appear that a patch has happened, it becomes much harder to justify the vendor's behavior. The false sense of security the revised OS date provides is especially pernicious at a time of malware that can literally destroy a device.

There are techniques by which a user can manually check for applied updates, but such techniques require methods that many users will not be comfortable using and most enterprise IT shops will find onerous. And there's no great way to know whether a particular device will be affected by any given patch that might be missed.

In the Wired article, Nohl touts defense in depth as the only realistic protection against the sort of vulnerabilities that may be created by a spoofed update. Defense in depth is a presumption for most corporate IT security schemes. It may well be that paranoia should be added to the toolbox if Android devices are in the pockets of corporate employees.

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