14 DAY TRIAL // Google is the third company to release the February security patch for its smartphones, after Sony and BlackBerry. The Mountain View company recently published the Android security bulletin for the month of February where it lists all the issues patched in the update.
Before going into details, it's worth mentioning the update is available for download for the following devices: Pixel XL, Pixel, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Pixel C, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 (Wi-Fi), and Nexus 9 (LTE).
The update is pushed OTA in stages, so it might not reach all compatible devices at the same time, but if you don't want to wait, you can either flash the factory images or OTA files that Google has already released.
Moving on to the contents of the update, Google states that the security patch has been split into two subsets tagged 2017-02-01 and 2017-02-05. Even so, you will receive the update as a single OTA file, so don't worry about the listing.
Browsing through the list of vulnerabilities the February security patch should address, we noticed that there are a total of 36 issues, but few can be considered critical.
In fact, Google says that “the most severe of these issues is a Critical security vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device through multiple methods such as email, web browsing, and MMS when processing media files.”
The search giant confirms that it did not receive any reports of active customer exploitation or abuse of these new issues reported by users.
To those of you who own smartphones other than Google, Sony or BlackBerry, the February security patch should be delivered starting this week. However, the availability of the update will vary by carrier and country.
The next security patch is expected to hit Nexus and Pixel devices in early March, but whether or not Google will be the first to release the update remains to be seen.