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The Android Security Bulletin is out for October and all users are happy to see a welcomed drop in vulnerabilities across several devices. Here are the most important announcements and fixes of the October update.
Pixel and Nexus Treated Separately
The first change that the October update announced is the splitting of the Nexus and Pixel devices from all other Android phones. Besides that, the issues that were affecting a lot of Android devices until now seem to have diminished with this latest release and even the everlasting Bluetooth bugs seem to approach an end.
Owners of the Pixel and Pixel XL should already be aware of the Bluetooth connectivity issue these models were facing quite some time ago. But now, with an official announcement of someone from Google that the October update will fix this issue, everything should come back to normal.
Critical Issues Included in the Update
Besides the fix for the Bluetooth connectivity problems that Pixel users were facing, Google included a few critical issues in the October update. Believe it or not, there are only 5 critical issues raised by October's Android update and they go like this:
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Media Framework
There are three critical bugs that were marked as Critical regarding the Media Framework of Android devices. They are viewed as critical because they might enable a remote attacker to access the phone in some ways. If you're using your phone for online gambling on 7Sultans, for example, you can rest assured. Their app is safely guarded against any form of attacks, we're talking about built-in media framework here.
Qualcomm Components
Here we have another 2 weak spots that Google marked as Critical for the same reasons as with the Media Framework. By using a malicious file, an attacker may be able to access to the phone.
How to Check the Security Release on Your Android Device
In case you're not sure which security release you have installed on your phone, you can easily check that out by accessing the Settings menu. It's not a common thing that the security updates to not automatically get installed on your device, however, it's no harm to double check and stay safe.
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So, open Setting and then look for the About Phone section, access that menu and then scroll down until you meet something that says "Android security patch level' and there you should see the version installed on your phone. Unfortunately, this is not an aspect that you can take into your own hands and update the security release on your device. If you're one of the lucky guys who doesn't own a phone that is prone to vulnerabilities, then there is no need to install a newer security release.
So there you go, these are the most notable updates of the October update for Android devices and I guess we all can breathe easily knowing that the major vulnerabilities are way lower now. Of course, developers will patch and update these vulnerabilities, however, it's up to us, in the end, to make sure all the fixes reach are installed on our devices. So make sure you keep your phone up to date and never use sites or apps that look suspicious in any way.