Reports have surfaced that a new layer of protection dubbed Advanced Memory Protection would be included in the upcoming Android 14 operating system (OS). This should protect phones against vulnerabilities in their memory security systems.
Memory Safety Bugs
These bugs, as Google describes them, are "errors in handling memory in native programming languages." The firm calls them the most prevalent bug in the Android codebases.
According to PhoneArena, they are responsible for millions of crashes that end up in the user's face and over 60% of all high-severity security flaws. These flaws cause Android devices to crash often and have a poor impact on stability.
Google says, "Given the [ever-increasing] complexity of code, if left unattended, memory safety bugs are going to increase over time. Therefore, providing our ecosystem with the tools and technologies that can detect and mitigate such bugs is critical to our [long-term] success."
This might be the answer to a long-standing issue that has plagued Android. In its own words, Google claims that: "Memory safety bugs have consistently been the top contributor to Android security vulnerabilities, going as far back as the first Android release."
To activate Memory Tagging on the future-looking Android 14 Developer Preview, Android 14 Beta, or release version of Android 14, go to Settings, choose Security & Privacy, select More Security Settings, and toggle on Memory Tagging.
Memory Tagging
Protection against memory violations that might compromise your phone's security is ensured by Memory Tagging Extension (MTE), a required hardware feature on ARM V9 CPU cores. Basically, MTE will keep your device secure against memory safety flaws. However, this functionality is not available on the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro since the Google Tensor 2 processor that drives these devices use ARM's V8.2 CPU cores.
Thus, it is possible that the Pixel 8 models, which are not anticipated to be released until the fourth quarter of this year, will be the first smartphones to feature this Android 14 memory protection.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipsets employ ARM V9 CPU cores, which are also required for the Tensor 3 processor to function properly-assuming, of course, that the functionality remains intact in the final release of Android 14.
Google is expected to introduce the Pixel 8 series, the mid-range Pixel 7a, the Pixel Fold, and the Pixel Tablet before the end of the current year. There will likely be no other products in 2023 that employ the Tensor 3 SoC outside the Pixel 8 series.
Considering that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro may be the first Android 14 phones to include ARM's V9 CPU cores, the next full-size, non-foldable Pixel series may be the first phones to implement Android 14's new Advanced Memory Protection.
