Android often gets a bad reputation when it comes to security. The reality is that the problem isn't Android itself – it's how much of the industry chooses to deploy and maintain it.

In the last five years, thousands of Android vulnerabilities and CVEs have been identified and patched by Google and the wider Android ecosystem. That's not unusual; every major operating system, including Windows, Linux and iOS, regularly receives security updates as new threats emerge.

The real issue is that many devices in the digital signage, enterprise video and hospitality markets continue to ship with Android 9, Android 10 or other legacy software versions long after support has effectively ended.

Worse still, even when security patches are available from the manufacturer, many organizations have no practical way of deploying them at scale. Updating a handful of devices manually is one thing; updating hundreds or thousands of endpoints spread across multiple sites is something entirely different.

This is where security stops being a software problem and becomes a management problem.

A security update only protects an organization if it can actually be deployed.

At Amino, we take a different approach. In addition to major platform upgrades, we release security patch updates every quarter, independently of Android version changes. This ensures that customers receive ongoing protection against newly discovered vulnerabilities without waiting for a major operating system upgrade.

Equally important, our management platform allows firmware and security updates to be deployed remotely across large estates, making it practical to maintain security throughout the lifetime of a deployment.

For enterprise organizations, this matters more than the Android version number printed on a specification sheet.

A device running Android 14 that never receives security updates will eventually become vulnerable. A device running a well-maintained platform with a structured patching program and centralized management is significantly better protected.

The question organizations should be asking isn't simply "which Android version does it run?", it's "how quickly are security vulnerabilities addressed and how easily can those updates be deployed?"

In today's threat landscape, security isn't determined by the operating system alone, it's determined by the commitment to maintain it.