Google releases March security patch for Pixel and Android devices

Google has posted the March Security Bulletin for Android and released an update bulletin for Pixel devices, addressing all the bug and vulnerability fixes for devices running its operating system. As usual, the patch will be released in three levels, with one focusing on the company's own Pixel-branded handsets, while the other two are released for Android and OEM or component-specific hardware.

Fixes for Pixel

For the Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, this month's patch resolves a number of issues that have been reported over the past several months. The update includes five patches that focus on improving the overall stability and usability of Google's hardware.

Among those improvements is a fix for the camera app, addressing its startup and responsiveness issues. You also get improvements to OTA updates, improved reliability of Bluetooth connections and improved playback of encrypted media in video apps where playback was causing trouble prior to the fix.

Fixes for Android

Users on other handsets will be seeing a wealth of security patches with the newest update too, beginning at the 2019-03-01 security patch level. That all starts with five elevation-of-privileges problems in the Android framework, three more in the media framework, and a further nine at the system level. One risk, which has been marked as "high" severity deals with an issue found in the media framework.

Seven 'information disclosure' vulnerabilities are being fixed up at the system level too, in addition to one more in the framework. All of those are rated as a high-severity problem. Finally, three remote code execution issues are also being patched, out of which one represents a critical soft point at the system level and two in the media framework.

In the 2019-03-05 security patch level update, there are far fewer fixes being implemented but a significant number of those are specific to Qualcomm components and noted as being critical problems. Of eight critical fixes in total, four are in Qualcomm components including the DSP_Services component and EcoSystem component while four more are in closed-source Qualcomm components left unspecified. A high-severity issue is being patched in both the "WIN NSS Host" and Video components, while four more patches at that level are being fixed in closed-source components.

All of the more general Android fixes in the second patch for March are rated at high severity and each addresses an elevation of privileges problem. One of those is for Android 8.0 Oreo and newer at the system level. The remaining three fixes apply at the kernel level and address potential problems in the filesystem and drivers.

While Google has seeded out this patch to OEMs and manufactueres, now its in their hands to push it out to customers. If you own a Pixel device, expect the patch to arrive on your handset soon.