I'd like to see "% days vulnerable to publicly-known vulnerabilities" as a smartphone statistic [LWN.net]

I'd like to see "% days vulnerable to publicly-known vulnerabilities" as a smartphone statistic

Posted Jan 21, 2016 22:26 UTC (Thu) by ksandstr (guest, #60862)
In reply to: I'd like to see "% days vulnerable to publicly-known vulnerabilities" as a smartphone statistic by b7j0c
Parent article: Dutch consumer group sues Samsung over Android updates (OSNews)

We used to have this, though. They were called "cell phones"; think about it, a telephone you could carry in your (cargo pants) pocket! Weren't any exploits for those things, at least above the baseband ROM...

I'd like to see "% days vulnerable to publicly-known vulnerabilities" as a smartphone statistic

Posted Jan 23, 2016 2:11 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

I wouldn't argue they were secure, just that nobody cared to exploit them because they didn't have any value exploited because it was just a phone. A modern smartphone has as much compute power as a computer from the 90's and a persistent internet connection. There is value in exploiting it just for that, let alone all the personal and financial data that they now house.

One of these days someone is going to be held to account in a civil suit for not fixing exploits and it's going to be very ugly for the manufacturers when that liability lands.

I'd like to see "% days vulnerable to publicly-known vulnerabilities" as a smartphone statistic

Posted Jan 24, 2016 0:32 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

Not being a target is as good a security as any. Would you prefer to live in a low-crime neighborhood without a Kevlar jacket, or in a war zone with the best Kevlar jacket money can buy?