All Android owners warned not to ignore latest | Tech News

Android has come a long approach previously decade. When I first began professionally reviewing smartphones in 2016, I fell in love with the range of design and specs you’ll be able to select from relying in your finances, however one factor I couldn’t forgive was the final lack of software program updates.

Even main Android gamers comparable to Samsung solely supplied two or possibly three years of software program updates on even their priciest handsets, and it wasn’t uncommon to see cheaper Android telephones get barely a 12 months of help, leaving them weak to software program bugs and online hacks when their owners ought to have been inspired to maintain onto the gadgets for as long as they have been purposeful.

Thankfully it’s a completely different story in 2026. Google and Samsung now offer seven years of software program updates for a lot of of their smartphones, whereas corporations comparable to Honor and OnePlus have improved their software program guarantees too.

It means if in case you have a trendy Android telephone, you’ll get pleasure from month-to-month security fixes within the kind of free software program updates. These updates land within the settings apps of Android telephones, beginning with Google’s own Pixel gadgets. Because Google owns and maintains Android, it patches security and privateness bugs and is in a position to push out updates quickest to its own telephones.

Google publishes a month-to-month Android Security Bulletin that publicly lays out what it has fixed within the latest Android replace. Once that is out, all Android producers are in a position to implement the fixes and push them out to their clients’ gadgets. It’s all on these Android manufacturers to make sure these software program updates attain your telephone.

If you have got an Android telephone, it’s a good concept to head to your Settings app and see if in case you have any software program updates ready to be put in. This month’s replace may very well be there for you, and one skilled says it’s best to not delay downloading it.

“Although the security bulletin released by Google is short, it addresses a serious and long-running flaw that Android users should not ignore,” stated Adam Boynton, Senior Security Strategy Manager EMEIA at Jamf, a security firm. “The vulnerability was discovered in 2025; however, this fix means it has now been patched at the Android platform level.”

“The vulnerability, CVE-2025-54957, is a flaw in Dolby’s DD+ (Dolby Digital Plus) Unified Decoder that allows an attacker to run malicious code. Most notably, on Android OS, audio attachments and voice messages are decoded locally; therefore, the flaw can be exploited without any user interaction.”

This sounds ominous, although in actuality you might be most unlikely to be personally focused with any sort of hack, even in case you havent up to date your telephone this month. However, in case you have been nonetheless utilizing a telephone from 2016 with no trendy updates like I discussed beforehand, you’ll be huge open to a plethora of security flaws that had constructed up through the years.

Smartphone updates are a lot more frequent than they as soon as have been, and that’s a good factor.

“This month’s bulletin is a reminder that regular patching is one of the most effective ways to reduce mobile risk,” Boynton added. “Whether using Android or iOS, keeping devices updated remains the single best defence against modern mobile threats.”