The LG company logo is seen following an event during the annual Consumer Electronics Show. (Photo : Reuters)
The recent smartphone hacks that exposed the loose security of some of the world's most popular devices has forced LG to release monthly security updates to its Android devices. The latest update was included in the Android 5.1.1 update which fixed the Stagefright exploit.
LG told Wired that they will be "providing security updates on a monthly basis which carriers will then be able to make available to customers immediately" and they believe "these important steps will demonstrate to LG customers that security is our highest priority."
The Stagefright vulnerability was traced down to the fundamentals of how the Android platform works. Since the Android operating system is released on the open-source ecosystem, smartphone manufacturers as well as developers are free to create their own version of it based on the backbone released by Google. This approach may seem beneficial to users but it also creates a challenge when releasing security updates since there is lot of minor variations of the operating system.
According to Engadget, the Stagefright bug threatens to affect more than 950 million devices running on the Android platform and, due to massive amounts of variations, releasing a universal fix will be difficult.
Aside from LG, Samsung also announced that it will release monthly security patches to all its Android devices in order to keep them secure. Samsung and LG are two of the biggest smartphone manufacturers releasing devices under the Android flagship.
Many tech analysts said that LG and Samsung's decision to release monthly security update will encourage other smartphone manufacturers to do the same in order to protect their users from malicious exploits.
