Is Android secure?
The security and privacy of our users' data is of primary importance to the
Android Open Source Project. We are dedicated to building and maintaining one
of the most secure mobile platforms available while still fulfilling our goal
of opening the mobile device space to innovation and competition.
The Android Platform provides a rich security model
that allows developers to request the capabilities, or access, needed by their
application and to define new capabilities that other applications can request.
The Android user can choose to grant or deny an application's request for
certain capabilities on the handset.
We have made great efforts to secure the Android platform, but it is
inevitable that security bugs will be found in any system of this complexity.
Therefore, the Android team works hard to find new bugs internally and responds
quickly and professionally to vulnerability reports from external researchers.
I think I found a security flaw. How do I
report it?
You can reach the Android security team at [email protected]. If you like, you
can protect your message using our PGP
key.
We appreciate researchers practicing responsible disclosure by emailing us
with a detailed summary of the issue and keeping the issue confidential while
users are at risk. In return, we will make sure to keep the researcher informed
of our progress in issuing a fix and will properly credit the reporter(s) when
we announce the patch. We will always move swiftly to mitigate or fix an
externally-reported flaw and will publicly announce the fix once patches are
available to users.
How can I stay informed of Android
security announcements?
An important part of sustainably securing a platform, such as, Android is
keeping the user and security community informed of bugs and fixes. We will
publicly announce security bugs when the fixes are available via postings to
the android-security-announce
group on Google Groups. You can subscribe to this group as you would a mailing
list and view the archives here.
For more general discussion of Android platform security, or how to use
security features in your Android application, please subscribe to android-security-discuss.
How do I securely use my Android phone?
As an open platform, Android allows users to load software from any
developer onto a device. As with a home PC, the user must be
aware of who is providing the software they are downloading and must decide
whether they want to grant the application the capabilities it requests.
This decision can be informed by the user's judgment of the software
developer's trustworthiness, and where the software came from.
Despite the security protections in Android, it is important
for users to only download and install software from developers they trust.
More details on how Android users can make smart security decisions will be
released when consumer devices become available.
I think I found malicious software being
distributed for Android. How can I help?
Like any other open platform, it will be possible for unethical developers
to create malicious software, known as malware, for Android. If you
think somebody is trying to spread malware, please let us know at [email protected]. Please include as
much detail about the application as possible, with the location it is
being distributed from and why you suspect it of being malicious software.
The term malicious software is subjective, and we cannot make an
exhaustive definition. Some examples of what the Android Security Team believes
to be malicious software is any application that:
- drains the device's battery very quickly;
- shows the user unsolicited messages (especially messages urging the
user to buy something);
- resists (or attempts to resist) the user's effort to uninstall it;
- attempts to automatically spread itself to other devices;
- hides its files and/or processes;
- discloses the user's private information to a third party, without the
user's knowledge and consent;
- destroys the user's data (or the device itself) without the user's
knowledge and consent;
- impersonates the user (such as by sending email or buying things from a
web store) without the user's knowledge and consent; or
- otherwise degrades the user's experience with the device.
How will Android-powered devices receive security
fixes?
The manufacturer of each device is responsible for distributing software
upgrades for it, including security fixes. Many devices will update themselves
automatically with software downloaded "over the air", while some devices
require the user to upgrade them manually.
When Android-powered devices are publicly available, this FAQ will provide links how
Open Handset Alliance members release updates.
Can I get a fix directly from the
Android Platform Project?
Android is a mobile platform that will be released as open source and
available for free use by anybody. This means that there will be many
Android-based products available to consumers, and most of them will be created
without the knowledge or participation of the Android Open Source Project. Like
the maintainers of other open source projects, we cannot build and release
patches for the entire ecosystem of products using Android. Instead, we will
work diligently to find and fix flaws as quickly as possible and to distribute
those fixes to the manufacturers of the products.
In addition, We will add security fixes to the open source distribution of
Android and publicly announce the changes on android-security-announce.
If you are making an Android-powered device and would like to know how you can
properly support your customers by keeping abreast of software updates, please
contact us at [email protected].
