US govt employees using outdated mobile OS

Nearly all US government Android users are still running outdated versions of the operating system, according to mobile security company Lookout.

An analysis of Lookout customers working in US federal, state and local government agencies found that 99.2% of Android users were running outdated operating systems in 2020.

Just 0.8% of devices analysed for the research were running the latest Android 11 operating system, with 38.3% still on Android 10, 28.2% on Android 9 and 22.8% still on Android 8, which was released in 2017.

Atlas VPN cybersecurity researcher and publisher Edward G said this finding is cause for concern given that Android 8 has 636 known vulnerabilities, Android 9 has 173 and Android 10 has 266.

“It is one of the most essential cybersecurity practices to keep a mobile operating system up to date. We are left in the dark as to why so many government employees choose not to update their phones, but no matter the reason, it leaves them exposed to hundreds of attack vectors,” he said.

Android 11, which was released in September, already has over 50 publicly known vulnerabilities.

Meanwhile, only 67.8% of federal, state and local US government employees owning iPhones are using the latest iOS 14, with 27.9% still on iOS 13 and 3.4% on iOS 12.

While iOS 14 has over 50 known vulnerabilities, version 13 has more than 195, and iOS 12 has 65.

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