88% of Android devices are unsafe, says … – Gizmodo in Spanish

“87.7% of Android devices is exposed to at least one of the 11 critical system vulnerabilities”, published by the University of Cambridge. And they point out the culprit: the problem is that updates through inaction manufacturers and operators, it takes a long time to reach the user. So the Nexus take top marks in security.

http://es.gizmodo.com/stagefright-si…

The article is signed by the department of computer science at the prestigious British university. The authors were six months analyzing the ecosystem of Android, and especially the network of actors who have to work together to provide users with the latest updates. What they found is not surprising. The bottleneck of security patches are, as mentioned, manufacturers and operators

Only the Nexus approve

For comparative they developed a mathematical formula called “LMP score” and that relates three factors: the proportion of free devices vulnerabilities (f), the proportion of devices updated the latest version of Android (u) and mean significant vulnerabilities that have not been arranged (m). 2.87 The average is about 10

These are the most outstanding scores between manufacturers.

• Nexus: 5.17 10
• LG: 3.97 10
• Motorola: 3.07 10
• Samsung: 2.75 10
• Sony: 2 63 10
• HTC 2.63 10
• ASUS: 2.35 10

And these are the scores between the operators analyzed:

• O2: 3.87 10
• T-Mobile 3.81 10
• Orange: 3.65 10
• Sprint: 3.42 10
• Vodafone: 3 17 10
• AT & T: 3.13 10
• Verizon: 2.84 10

An update to the year itself hurts

The proportion of devices that use a version of Android “unsafe”, “maybe safe” and “secure” over time.

Time is an important factor that penalizes these scores. Researchers warn of few devices receive quick updates. The average is 1.26 updates per year, leaving the unpatched terminal for too long

Opinion: not exculpemos to Google

Operators and manufacturers are to blame for that security updates are taking or directly are not reaching that 88% of unsafe devices but can we relieve Google of the problem?

If you really impossible to centralize the updates of such a complex ecosystem, then at least have to encourage intermediaries to not neglect both the user. Sundar Pichai, have work to do. Meanwhile cases continue to occur as the Stagefright, in which a critical vulnerability is discovered but the update takes eons to get from Google to the user. [University of Cambridge]

Image: Getty

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