Your Android OS Will Upgrade Itself Automatically, Without Any Manual Effort: Is It Safe?

Your Android OS Will Upgrade Itself Automatically, Without Any Manual Effort: Is It Safe?
Your Android OS Will Upgrade Itself Automatically, Without Any Manual Effort: Is It Safe?

As per the news coming in, the Android smartphone and tablet owners may get a brilliant upgrade to the way they install operating system updates on their devices. 

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How Did This Happen?

This upgrade is expected to making it easier to get new features, security boosts and performance tweaks overnight with no need to even tap on your Android device screen.

It seems that Google toiling away to fix one of the pain-points of upgrading its Android operating system. 

The search firm appears to be looking into the ability to install an operating system and reboot without requiring smartphone owners to input their PIN or passphrase when it reboots, as per the new code listed in the Android Open Source Project.

How Would It Work?

According to reports, if it works then when an Android smartphone or tablet is updated, it will clear the cache of all apps. 

That will flush the whole system and should make for a more reliable and steady upgrade. Usually, this process happens in the background when your Android displays the “Android is upgrading…” message.

During this process, Android asks for your password, secure pattern or PIN whenever the handset reboots for security purposes. 

Because the secure storage, is also known as the “credential encrypted” (CE) storage – this secure portion of the message is where Android squirrels away your personal files and apps. 

When apps and core operating system parts need to access this data, so it needs your PIN to unlock the data.

That why you need to be on hand to input the passcode and unlock the secure storage to continue the process.

Why This Upgrade Is So Important?

This new feature is of significance since Android is already struggling to convince users to update at the same rate as rival iOS, anything Google can do to make the process a little more frictionless could be massively significant.

The solution the Mountain View-based company appears to have dreamt-up is entitled “Support Resume on Reboot”.

In simple words, the code seems to suggest that once “Support Resume on Reboot” is available in Android 10, the operating system will be able to complete an upgrade on its own.

How Are They Going Implement This Solution?

To implement this solution, the Google software will temporarily and securely store your unlock pattern, PIN or password before the operating system update kicks-in. 

Afterworld, during the update when it needs to access some of the data locked away in the secure storage/credential encrypted part of your handset’s memory, the system will simply input the password it has temporarily stored away.

That means the Android could silently upgrade your smartphone – adding new features, tweaking the design, boosting the performance and quashing troublesome bugs – overnight, without any need for you to unlock the handset. 

You’ll simply wake-up to an Android smartphone with some shiny new features. Sounds amazing right. (Reference)

Why Should We Worry?

In reality, any technology that stops secure passwords, PIN or patterns should be viewed with a healthy amount of caution. 

In case if you use the same password for your smartphone as multiple online accounts or online banking logins – which is actually prohibited.

Because leaving users credentials in the hands of software while they are asleep doesn’t sound the best way to guard the user data.

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