Android 4.3 and SELinux

Not many weeks ago Google released a new revision of its flagship mobile operating system, Android 4.3. Although some say that this time updates have been quite scarce, from a security perspective there have been some undeniable improvements (among others, the “MasterKey” vulnerability has been finally patched). One of the most prominent is SELinux. Many cheered the event as a long-awaited move, while others criticized its implementation. Personally, I think that the impact is not that easy to assess, especially if we were to question the benefits for end-users. In order to shed some light we can’t help but analyze a bit more what SELinux is, and what is its threat model.

Android JellyBean 4.3 logo.

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