X-post: Better understanding and mitigating the risks of using a phone that no longer receives system updates
X-post: Better understanding and mitigating the risks of using a phone that no longer receives system updates
Too many perfectly usable phones are put into a questionable security situation by lack of vendor support for keeping key software up to date. But what’s the actual risk of using an Android phone on a stock ROM without updates? What’s the attack surface? It seems like most things that’d contact pote...
Crosspost of an ongoing thread over at [email protected]
Some interesting discussions on the trade-off between security and being able to use your aging Android for a little while longer.
While I hate relegating perfectly usable Android phones to a landfill, identity theft also sucks. The bottom line is that manufacturers should be required to supply updates for longer periods of time or provide a means to completely unlock them for free and let end users install new versions of the ROM.
Perhaps images, video, font etc. rendering could be compromised?
Yes, it already happen in the past. Also the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth stack got exploited, like multiple kernel drivers.
But it shouldn't be a matter of "in the past was X exploited?" but more on having a correct security posture.
Honestly if you are arguing about wasting a "perfectly working phone" you should blame it on the vendor, especially Android devices vendors have this let's say "defect" of dropping the support after 4/5 years.
Also not going to talk about custom ROMs (with the super rare exclusion of some) managed by god knows who, without any security team behind.
Since even the NFC and Cellular Network stack got vulnerabilities the only way you would consider an old phone "safe" to use is just turning it into the equivalent of a local ARM server.
Also pretty fun seeing the replies in the original post talking about how Google Play store shouldn't have malware on it.