Google‘s Android security bulletin for December is live now for anyone interested in seeing what the details are for the changes that will be included in this month’s upcoming security patch, which will be sent out to users with compatible devices soon and includes both generations of the Pixel devices, as well as some Nexus devices. The security bulletin is also useful for just about every other Android user who will be receiving this patch through their carrier on a non-Google device, as well as OEMs who send them out directly to unlocked devices separate from Google.
As to what’s different with this patch there are a number of high and moderate level vulnerabilities but there are no critical issues this time around which is a very good thing, and it’s even better for any device owner who tends to have to wait a little bit for the patch to come through as not everyone is as quick at pushing it out as Google. A handful of those vulnerabilities revolved around the media framework while there was only one moderate vulnerability with the Broadcom components, and a handful of issues found and patched across various other categories like the Kernel components, MediaTek components, and NVIDIA components. There’s also a fairly large amount of issues listed under the Qualcomm components.
The security bulletins for Google’s patches usually come after the Factory images and OTA images are pushed out for the patch itself, but this time around Google has posted the bulletin first. That said, Verizon has seemingly already pushed the patch out to its version of the Pixel devices from this year and last year, and it includes the fix for the KRACK Wi-Fi vulnerability. As to when Google will publish the images for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL, according to Google users of either of those four devices can expect the patch images to be live in the usual place sometime tomorrow, though Google doesn’t explicitly state when tomorrow, or what other devices will have the images available beyond those in the Pixel lineup of phones. It’s also worth noting that the images are just for flashing and the actual OTA download will be pushed out at a later point.