Android Oreo gets updated with more security features, says Google

Ever since Android Oreo was officially available for Pixel devices, Google and its software developers and engineers are hard at work to ensure that the security of the update remains strong. The company has announced several improvements that have been introduced to the latest and greatest software update from Google.

Some of the improvements and changes have been listed below via Google’s blog post.

Read more: Android Oreo 8.1: All the features you get in Google’s latest OS update

“Android already supports Verified Boot, which is designed to prevent devices from booting up with software that has been tampered with. In Android Oreo, we added a reference implementation for Verified Boot running with Project Treble, called Android Verified Boot 2.0 (AVB). AVB has a couple of cool features to make updates easier and more secure, such as a common footer format and rollback protection. Rollback protection is designed to prevent a device to boot if downgraded to an older OS version, which could be vulnerable to an exploit. To do this, the devices save the OS version using either special hardware or by having the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) sign the data. Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL come with this protection and we recommend all device manufacturers add this feature to their new devices.

Oreo also includes the new OEM Lock Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) that gives device manufacturers more flexibility for how they protect whether a device is locked, unlocked, or unlockable. For example, the new Pixel phones use this HAL to pass commands to the bootloader. The bootloader analyzes these commands the next time the device boots and determines if changes to the locks, which are securely stored in Replay Protected Memory Block (RPMB), should happen. If your device is stolen, these safeguards are designed to prevent your device from being reset and to keep your data secure. This new HAL even supports moving the lock state to dedicated hardware.

Speaking of hardware, we’ve invested support in tamper-resistant hardware, such as the security module found in every Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. This physical chip prevents many software and hardware attacks and is also resistant to physical penetration attacks. The security module prevents deriving the encryption key without the device’s passcode and limits the rate of unlock attempts, which makes many attacks infeasible due to time restrictions.

While the new Pixel devices have the special security module, all new GMS devices shipping with Android Oreo are required to implement key attestation. This provides a mechanism for strongly attesting IDs such as hardware identifiers.”

Read more: Android Oreo (Go edition) for budget devices from Google is here

If you want to check out more security features and changes made to Android Oreo, make sure to click on the source link at the bottom. If you must know, malicious applications have also started to get filtered out from the Google Play Store, preventing users from downloading applications that can cause a great deal of harm to their devices.

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