Android Security Update for January 2017 Released for Supported Devices

Another month, another Android Security Update. Google has actively been taking steps to find and disclose security issues during their monthly Android Security Bulletins. The current situation in the world of Android security, at least from Google’s end, is a lot better than before such bulletins were released.

Right on time, the security patch for January 2017 is now live. All supported devices can look forward to receiving an OTA with the update that patches a lot of security holes. The complete security update marked for January 5th, 2017 contains patches for 10 vulnerabilities marked critical, 28 marked as high severity, and 12 marked as moderate severity in total.

Google notes that the most severe of the patched issues is a Critical vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device. This remote execution could be initiated through multiple methods such as email, web browsing, and MMS when processing media files. The good news is that Google has received no reports of active exploitation or abuse of these reported issues in the wild.

If you are interested, you can read the complete security bulletin for the month of January found here.

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Installation

To manually update to this release, you can either make use of the factory images or the OTA update zips.

The Pixel and the Pixel XL have builds labeled NMF26U/V for November. The Pixel C and Nexus 5X get (individual) builds labeled N4F26I, while the Nexus 6P gets an additional build labeled N4F26J. The Nexus Player gets builds N4F26J and N4F26R, while the Nexus 9 WiFi gets N4F26M. January’s build for the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9 LTE are not yet live at this time, but we can expect them to arrive soon.

• Pixel XL
  • NMF26U
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
  • NMF26V
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
• Pixel
  • NMF26U
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
  • NMF26V
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
• Pixel C
  • N4F26I
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
• Nexus 6P
  • N4F26I
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
  • N4F26J
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
• Nexus 5X
  • N4F26I
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
• Nexus Player
  • NMF26R
    • Factory Image
    • OTA
• Nexus 9 Wi-Fi
  • N4F26M
    • Factory Image
    • OTA

Google has shown that it remains committed to improving security on Android through such regular patches. Now it is up to the OEMs to follow suit.

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