It’s the beginning of another month, which means it’s time for another security update. And like clock work, Google released the factory images today, which are available for the Nexus 5, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P, Nexus 7 (2013, WiFi and LTE models), Nexus 9, Nexus 10, Nexus Player and the Pixel C. You can grab the factory images here. Now Google has posted the security bulletin for this month’s update, so we can see exactly what they fixed in this security update. As usual, Google doesn’t detail all of the vulnerabilities that they solved, and is still pretty vague about the ones they did fix.
This security patch is the May 2nd, 2016 version and fixes a pretty large number of issues with Android devices. Google notes in the security bulletin that the most severe issue that was fixed up was a “critical security vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device through multiple methods such as email, web browsing and MMS when processing media files.” While that is the most severe, Google has patched a total of 25 vulnerabilities in this patch. Of the 25 that were fixed, 24 of them affect Nexus and/or Android One devices. In the security bulletin, Google also notes that there are zero reports – so far – of devices being actively exploited by any of these fixes.
There are quite a few elevation of privilege vulnerabilities that have been solved here. As well as remote code execution in Bluetooth. This is one of the biggest updates for the monthly security patches, so far. Which is both good and bad. It’s good because it means that Google is finding these vulnerabilities and patching them. But also bad because we know how long it’s going to take for this update to hit the majority of Android devices out there. Many of which are not even on a security patch from 2016, unfortunately. Google does recommend in this bulletin, that users update to the latest security patch whenever possible. To help protect you, your data and your device from any harm that could be caused with these vulnerabilities in Android. Hit up the source link below to get all of the information on this month’s security update.