A recent survey conducted by “Which?” has discovered that over a billion Android-based smartphones and tablets are vulnerable to hackers. The report says that more than 40% of people using Android-based devices are susceptible to hacks as their devices are running on the older version of software giving hackers a fair chance to snoop on their personal information.
It is estimated that in the UK over 7 million smartphones based on Google’s operating system are at risk of being hacked as they are running on Android 5 and even older versions.
Security experts say that the phones which are at higher risks are the ones that are operating on Android 4 and old versions.
For this reason, Google has been asking its users to keep their phones up to date with regards to operating systems and security updates to avoid data theft, ransom demands, and all other malware attacks.
Recently, Google has started to offer phones which run on Android 10 OS and it is likely to offer the latest by the next fall. So, as of now, those devices running on Google Android 9 and 8 are getting updates on a regular note and are safe to use. And all other versions which are operating on older software are vulnerable to hacks.
Note 1- Those operating systems which are more than 18 months old, often stop receiving security updates from developers. So, the Alphabet Inc’s subsidiary always advises its users to go for a device which has the latest software in order to secure the device from all modern cyber threats.
Note 2- As per the estimate released by Google in 2019, there are over 2.5 billion active Android devices operating in the world. And among the estimates stats over 42% of those are running on the older versions such as 6.0 or earlier- i.e. on Marshmallow-2015, Lollipop-2014, KitKat-2013, Jellybean-2012, Ice Cream Sandwich-2011, and Gingerbread-2010.
Note 3- Google estimates that devices produced by Motorola, Samsung, Lenovo, Oppo, Sony, LG, and Xiaomi are all vulnerable to hackers. That means those devices released before 2012 are super-susceptible to hackers.
Note 4- It is estimated that over 96% of Nokia phones running on Android OS are reported to be running on the latest software.
