Android devices have been criticized in the past for lacking adequate security measures. The reasons for this are many – ranging from platform fragmentation to the fact that it is open-source, among others. And critics have now got something big to brag about. A new research has revealed that more than 50% Android devices have unpatched vulnerabilities.

Unpatched vulnerabilities are essentially golden opportunities for hackers who know about these loopholes and are smart enough to create an exploit. For the users, they possess huge security risks.

The findings by Duo Security indicate that more than 50% of Android devices contain such vulnerabilities. According to the CTO at Duo Security, Jon Oberheide, “The stat is based on over 20,000 users who downloaded and ran the X-Ray mobile application on their device, and the current global distribution of Android versions. Yes, it’s a scary number, but it exemplifies how important expedient patching is to mobile security and how poorly the industry–carriers, device manufacturers, etc.–has performed thus far.”

A lot of the blame is being laid with the wireless carriers for such vulnerabilities in Android devices. According to Oberheide, the carriers are really very slow in rolling out updates to the users. Due to this, the unpatched vulnerabilities are there for a fairly long time, allowing hackers to cash on them before they could be patched.

Such vulnerabilities may also allow other harmless apps to gather personal and private data of the users and sell them to advertising agencies.

Courtesy: Information Week

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