Security News > 2021 > March > 99.2% of US government Android users are running outdated OS versions
Roid, the most popular mobile operating system in the world, runs on plenty of devices used by U.S. government workers, but only 0.08% of those devices are running the latest version of Android, a report finds.
Mobile security firm Lookout is behind the report, which looked at over 200 million mobile devices being used by U.S. federal and state government workers between January 2019 and December 2020.
Phishing attacks may be a matter of training users to avoid falling for tricks, but other attacks against government devices attempting to leverage known vulnerabilities, and older versions of Android are rife with them.
The breakdown in Android versions among government devices is alarming, as is the number of CVE vulnerabilities they contain.
"In contrast to Android devices, iOS users in the government sector show a high rate of adoption of the latest iOS version, with 67.8% on iOS 14."Government agencies or departments may choose to delay updates until their proprietary apps have been tested.
A second bright spot in the report is the contrast between managed and BYOD devices used by government employees: On the federal side, 91.34% of mobile devices are government- managed, and at the state and local level 75.69% are managed.