page.title=Security overview
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    <h2>In this document</h2>
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<h2 id="android-security-program-overview">Security Program Overview</h2>
<p>Early on in development, the core Android development team recognized that a
  robust security model was required to enable a vigorous ecosystem of
  applications and devices built on and around the Android platform and supported
  by cloud services. As a result, through its entire development lifecycle,
  Android has been subjected to a professional security program. The Android team
  has had the opportunity to observe how other mobile, desktop, and server platforms
  prevented and reacted to security issues and built a security
  program to address weak points observed in other offerings.</p>
<p>The key components of the Android Security Program include:</p>
<ul>
  <li><strong>Design Review</strong>: The Android security process begins early in the
    development lifecycle with the creation of a rich and configurable security
    model and design. Each major feature of the platform is reviewed by engineering
    and security resources, with appropriate security controls integrated into the
    architecture of the system.</li>
  <li><strong>Penetration Testing and Code Review</strong>: During the development of the
    platform, Android-created and open source components are subject to vigorous
    security reviews. These reviews are performed by the Android Security Team,
    Google’s Information Security Engineering team, and independent security
    consultants. The goal of these reviews is to identify weaknesses and possible
    vulnerabilities well before the platform is open sourced, and to simulate the
    types of analysis that will be performed by external security experts upon
    release.</li>
  <li><strong>Open Source and Community Review</strong>: The Android Open Source Project enables
    broad security review by any interested party. Android also uses open source
    technologies that have undergone significant external security review,
    such as the Linux kernel.  Google Play provides a forum for users and companies
    to provide information about specific applications directly to users.</li>
  <li><strong>Incident Response</strong>: Even with all of these precautions, security issues
    may occur after shipping, which is why the Android project has created a
    comprehensive security response process. A full-time Android security team
    constantly monitors Android-specific and the general security community for
    discussion of potential vulnerabilities. Upon the discovery of legitimate
    issues, the Android team has a response process that enables the rapid
    mitigation of vulnerabilities to ensure that potential risk to all Android
    users is minimized.  These cloud-supported responses can include updating the
    Android platform (over-the-air updates), removing applications from Google
    Play, and removing applications from devices in the field.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="android-platform-security-architecture">Platform Security Architecture</h2>
<p>Android seeks to be the most secure and usable operating system for mobile
  platforms by re-purposing traditional operating system security controls to:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Protect user data</li>
  <li>Protect system resources (including the network)</li>
  <li>Provide application isolation</li>
</ul>
<p>To achieve these objectives, Android provides these key security features:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Robust security at the OS level through the Linux kernel</li>
  <li>Mandatory application sandbox for all applications</li>
  <li>Secure interprocess communication</li>
  <li>Application signing</li>
  <li>Application-defined and user-granted permissions</li>
</ul>