The Android 14 Developer Preview has revealed a new security feature called Advanced Memory Protection. This feature is designed to prevent memory safety bugs which are the most common source of high severity security vulnerabilities and cause millions of user-visible crashes on Android devices.
Advanced Memory Protection can be activated by going to Settings > Security & Privacy > More Security Settings and toggling on the Memory Tagging option. This feature will be available on Android 14 Developer Preview, Beta, and stable versions.
Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) is a mandatory hardware feature for ARM V9 CPU cores and helps protect your device from memory safety bugs. Unfortunately, the Google Tensor 2 chip used in the Pixel 7 series uses ARM’s V8.2 CPU cores, so this feature will not be available on Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro devices.
The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, expected to be released in the final quarter of the year, may be the first phones to feature the Android 14 memory protection. This is if the Tensor 3 chip uses ARM V9 CPU cores, similar to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Gen 2 chipsets. However, this feature may be removed by Google before the stable version of Android 14 is released.
Paraphrase 2: Google is expected to release several devices before the end of the year, including the Pixel 8 series, mid-range Pixel 7a, Pixel Fold, and Pixel Tablet. The Pixel 8 series is expected to be the only 2023 devices to use the Tensor 3 SoC.
The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, as the first phones to run Android 14 with ARM V9 CPU cores, could also be the first to support Android 14’s Advanced Memory Protection. Google believes that this is an important step to ensuring long-term success, as memory safety bugs have consistently been the leading contributor to Android security vulnerabilities.
Google has stated that memory safety bugs have been the top contributor to Android security vulnerabilities since the first Android release. The Advanced Memory Protection feature in Android 14 may be the solution to this long-standing problem.
