University of Cambridge study finds that 87% of Android Devices are Insecure

“It’s easy to see that the Android ecosystem currently has a rather lax policy toward security, but a recent study from the University of Cambridge put some hard numbers to Android’s security failings,” Ron Amadeo reports for Ars Technica. “The conclusion finds that ‘on average 87.7% of Android devices are exposed to at least one of 11 known critical vulnerabilities.’”

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“Along with the study, the University of Cambridge is launching AndroidVulnerabilities.org, a site that houses this data and grades OEMs based on their security record,” Amadeo reports. “The group came up with a 1-10 security rating for OEMs that it calls the ‘FUM’ score. This algorithm takes into account the number of days a proportion of running devices has no known vulnerabilities (Free), the proportion of devices that run the latest version of Android (Update), and the mean number of vulnerabilities not fixed on any device the company sells (Mean).”

“The study found that Google’s Nexus devices were the most secure out there, with a FUM score of 5.2 out of 10. Surprisingly, LG was next with 4.0, followed by Motorola, Samsung, Sony, and HTC, respectively,” Amadeo reports. “With 87% of devices flagged as insecure on any given day, the study really shows how far the Android ecosystem has to go to protect its users.”

Read more in the full article here.

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