What you need to know
- The September 2020 security patch is official and rolling out to devices.
- There are patches for Android's Framework and from chip vendors.
- New Pixel features come with the Android 11 update.
A new month means a new security patch for Pixel phones. Most times these updates aren't flashy, and even when we see a Pixel feature Drop, the changes aren't massive. But they do what they were intended to do: make your phone more secure while you use it.
This month, we see a handful of patches for Android's open-source project with some even reaching back to Android 8.0. Hopefully, nobody releases a new device running Android Oreo, but if they do it will be a little more secure because of those changes.
The bulk of the patches are from Qualcomm and MediaTek to address the obscure yet important ways researchers have been able to exploit the hardware. While some of these changes are open source and available for public audit, most are closed and part of your phone's binary driver package which is included with the patch update that's on its way.
Factory images for the patch are already available, but if you don't feel like manually flashing it onto your device, you can also just wait for the over-the-air update to come through.
