KitKat Raises Android Security Bar

posted onNovember 12, 2013
by l33tdawg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

Google's mobile operating system Android has been a whipping boy for some segments of the security community, but the latest version of the software may begin to rehabilitate its reputation.

Android 4.4, or KitKat, contains a number of new and improved features that are garnering the praise of malware fighters. They include improved implementation of SELinux, better warnings about bad website certificates, and a fortified method for blocking potential malicious changes to the operating system.

SELinux is an open source security module developed for the Linux kernel by the NSA. Google incorporated it into the last version of Android, but allowed it to operate only in permissive mode. In that mode, it monitored a system but didn't act on what it saw happening there. In KitKat, SELinux is running in enforcement mode. In that mode, it can block rogue applications trying to escalate their privileges to take control of a device.

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