Android 16: Today’s smartphones have become a treasure of your banking details, personal photos and sensitive information not only to send calls and messages. Although we take many steps for safety, it is very difficult to avoid some cyber attacks. One such dangerous attack is the stingray attack, which by creating a fake mobile tower and implicates your phone and intercept your call and message quietly. Now to prevent this danger, a new facility is going to come in Android 16, which will give the users warning as soon as they connect with any such fake tower.
What is the new security facility of Android 16?
Google has included a new page named “Mobile Network Security” in Android 16 under Safety Center, which you will be able to access by going to the phone’s Settings> Security & Privacy section. It contains two main options.
Network Notifications
On turning on this setting, your phone will send alert whenever he switchs from an encrypted network to an unnapped network or when a network will ask for information about unique identification (eg IMEI) of your phone. This setting is closed by default, but on turning on you will get a clear alert in the notification panel and safety center.
2G network security
This option gives you the option to close 2G connectivity of the phone. 2G networks are considered very insecure in today’s time and stingray attack is very easy in them. This setting is also closed by default.
In which devices will this feature be available?
This new security facility will only work in devices in which Android 16 is already inbuilt and who supports Android’s Radio Hal 3.0 driver. Therefore, this facility may not be seen in the old phones who have received Android 16 update later. At the moment, this feature is not visible in Google’s Pixel phones.
Also, according to Google’s hardware policy, every smartphone manufacturer itself decides which hardware features should be given in the device. In such a situation, some companies may not give this feature in their device.
Steps have been taken earlier also
Google has also made efforts to stop the stingray attack earlier. In Android 15, it was the feature that whenever a network used to demand unique identification of the phone, the user used to get alert. An option was also added to Android 12, so that the user could completely close the 2G network.
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