November 2, 2008 by Matt Thomas
Remember a week or so ago I wrote about a flaw in Google’s Android operating system that could compromise the security of users. Well, in the interest of fairness to Google, I should report that the flaw has been fixed with an update available to all users imminently.
The issue has been a test of how quickly and efficiency the company can react to things like this and they appear to have passed. Though the way that the issue came to light in the first place will leave a sour taste with Google, after a private security firm, Independent Security Evaluators, not only discovered the glitch, but gave the information to the press.
This has led Google to call for “Responsible disclosure.” What it means by that is, if a private user or company should discover a security glitch with Android, they should give Google a reasonable amount of time to fix the problem before they go public.
Google says that this is so unscrupulous users have less time to exploit a glitch once they are made aware of it. You would however, be forgiven for thinking that it’s actually an attempt to reduce the amount of embarrassment and PR damage that Google, who are constantly competing with the likes of the Iphone and the BlackBerry, suffer.
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