Android 14 brings numerous security and privacy improvements

guest · Feb 8, 2023

Android 14 to block malware from abusing sensitive permissions
By Bill Toulas @billtoulas - February 8, 2023

Google has announced the release of the first developer preview for Android 14, the next major version of the world's most popular mobile operating system, which comes with security and privacy enhancements, among other things.
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Starting with Android 14, apps will have to declare precisely how they plan to use certain phone features, data exchange between them will be limited, and additional files downloaded by apps will be read-only.

A highlighted security feature in Android 14 is to block the installation of malicious apps that target older API levels (Android versions), which allows easier abuse of sensitive permissions.
Android 14 enhances security
Starting with the "Runtime receivers," which enable apps to receive intents broadcast by the system or other applications, all apps targeting Android 14 must declare if they need to receive information from other apps or if they should be limited to system "broadcasts."
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To further tighten up the information exchange between apps and prevent malware from gripping sensitive user data, Android 14 will also restrict the sending of "intents" that don't have a specified recipient.

With this new security enhancement, malware can no longer intercept intents sent from other apps and read their contents.
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The third security feature that will land on Android 14 is "safer dynamic code loading," which limits all files downloaded by an application to read-only mode.
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Finally, Android 14 will block the installation of harmful apps that target SDK versions lower than 23 (Android 6.0) to achieve easier permissions abuse.

"Malware often targets older API levels to bypass security and privacy protections that have been introduced in newer Android versions," explains Google.
"To protect against this, starting with Android 14, apps with a targetSdkVersion lower than 23 cannot be installed."
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Android 14 is still far from its final form, and we may see more security features land on the second developer preview in March 2023.

For more information about all new features that have landed in the first developer preview of Android 14, visit the developer site.
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