Google usually sticks to a pretty tight schedule when updating its Pixel phones, but it seems the company has been hitting the snooze button lately. We normally see security patches on the first Monday of each month, but the March 2023 security update for most Pixel users didn’t come until the second Monday, and Pixel 6 owners even had to wait an extra week on top of that. Now, the April 2023 security update is apparently delayed too.
At 10 a.m. Pacific — 10:15 at the latest — we usually see a post from Google on the Pixel Community forums announcing the new update. That time came and went with no sign of new firmware — not even on Google’s factory images page or its OTA download site. What we did get, however, was a new Android Security Bulletin for April 2023.
The Security Bulletin pertains to all of Android, not just Pixel devices. It discloses Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that have been recently discovered and the software patches Google has issued to harden Android’s security against said vulnerabilities.
This month’s Security Bulletin has its fixes divided into two security patch levels, which has become the norm as Google tries to make updates easier for Android OEMs to implement. The first patch level of April 1 outlines fixes for 28 CVEs in the Android system and framework, while the second contains 41 fixes for vendor-specific CVEs and has a date of April 5.
In total, 69 CVEs were patched, 6 of which were deemed critical: CVE-2023-21085, CVE-2023-21096, CVE-2022-33231, CVE-2022-33288, CVE-2022-33289, and CVE-2022-33302. The worst of these vulnerabilities was an Android System CVE that allowed a nearby attacker to execute code on a target device without physical access or user interaction.
Google publishes a separate Security Bulletin with Pixel-specific fixes, but like the April security update for Pixel devices, this has yet to rear its head. When it does, you should be able to find the list of patches here. The question remains, will that be tomorrow, Wednesday, or sometime next week? We’ll stay on the lookout and update this post when we spot something.
