“Android 14 continues our work to improve your productivity as developers, along with enhancements to performance, privacy, security and user customization,” the company said.
How will Android 14 secure the smartphone
To enhance the security of Android phones, Android 14 will limit the permissions of apps by enforcing stricter API requirements.
Limited App Data Exchange: Apps must announce in detail how their apps plan to use certain phone features. Data exchange between apps will be limited, and additional files downloaded by apps will be read-only.
Preventing installation of malicious apps: Another highlighted security feature in Android 14 is preventing the installation of malicious apps. These apps target older API levels, which makes it easier for them to abuse sensitive permissions.
Additionally, Android 14 will also limit the sending of “intents” (a message that is sent by one app to request any action from another app component) that does not have a specified recipient. With this restriction, malware will not be able to intercept these intents.
Safe dynamic code loading: This third security feature will limit files downloaded by an application to read-only mode. What usually happens is that malicious codes are injected into additional files that are executed upon download completion. Since all these files are read-only, hackers will not be able to execute malicious code.
Android 14 will also block the installation of harmful apps targeting SDK versions lower than 23 (Android 6.0). “Malware often targets older API levels to bypass security and privacy protections that have been introduced in newer Android versions,” Google said.