Doubly good news for all Pixel 6 smartphone owners: Google not only started the rollout of the Android security update for the month of May on time last night but also closed a serious security gap on the smartphones without further comment. Known as the ‘dirty pipe’, the gap should be history on the current generation of Pixels.
For the second month in a row, Google has managed to provide the Pixel 6 smartphones with the Android security update on time. Although the problem with the non-responsive display, which became known only a few days ago, is not part of the fixes, another gap has now been closed that remained open in the previous month: The Dirty Pipe security gap, feared in some circles, can be found on the pixel 6 smartphones no longer exploit.
Dirty Pipe is a serious vulnerability in the current Linux kernel and therefore only affects relatively new devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S22 and Pixel 6 smartphones. But while Samsung claims to have filled the gap at the end of March and solved the problem with the April update, things looked very different at Google. Although there was enough lead time and Samsung and other manufacturers also made it, the Pixel 6 smartphones took a little more time.
Any device with a security patch level of 2022-05-05 or newer should have the patch fixing the Dirty Pipe vulnerability. You no longer need a beta to be protected against this vuln on your Pixel 6!
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) May 2, 2022
Even today, people are silent about the gap and have not commented on the problem or the fix. Although it has now been fixed, it is difficult to understand why people always act according to this pattern when problems arise. But luckily there are keen eyes like Mishaal Rahman confirming the fix.
You have to give Google credit for not rushing out the fix, but testing it in advance. Just a few days after the April security update, a beta containing the fix for the Pixel 6 smartphones was released. So you can be pretty sure now, but you played big for the whole of April. Hard to imagine if this gap had been exploited in the past few days. Lucky both users and Google.