The security implications of being stuck with an old Android OS
There's been some disturbing news about Android security recently. It appears that many shipped Android-based devices are simply not getting system updates. Apart from getting righteously frustrated as consumers, we should also understand the short- and long-term effects this has on security.
According to Michael DeGusta's research, which he explained on his blog, TheUnderstatement, Android product vendors have pretty much gone with a practice of releasing their devices with a fairly current version of Android, and then releasing just one or two system updates in subsequent yearsat best.
Thus, most Android handsets today are running Version 2.2.x or 2.3.x of Android, though Google just released 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich"). To be fair, that sounds worse than it really is, since the 3.x branch was primarily for tablet-based systems, and much of the reason for 4.x is to unify the platform among smartphones and tablets better, which would be a very good thing.
