I have recently purchased a P6000, and there's a thing that surprised me a lot. If I go to "Settings -> About phone -> Android security patch level" it says "November 5, 2017".

But if I go to the Android Security Bulletins website, I can clearly see that plenty of more recent patches have been published since them, many of which contain important vulnerabilities.

Shall I be worried?

Security patches require a lot of work to be updated each time they get released. Don't worry.

I personally choose to only use a phone which it's secure and updated. Also not to wait for you to react on this.

Consider upgrading all your devices to Android 8, which is way easier to patch, and automate the deployment of new updates. I would even made that code public, so other people can help with them even when you are no longer interested in supporting the device.

Don't get me wrong, this phone hardware is superb and I'm aware this is a common issue with nearly all Android manufacturers.

But that doesn't make the issue less worse. Having all the secrets in a device which updates less than a year is a big no no.

As example my desktop Linux operating system, Manjaro, takes upstream patches in days, not weeks. While Lineage OS delivers updated Android to a wide variety of phones for way longer than what is supported by the manufacturer. Both of them in a stable way, both of them made by a small group of people in their spare time.

The trick is simply to automate the updates in such a way they stop the line in case an issue is detected, till it's fixed.

es20490446e wrote:

The trick is simply to automate the updates in such a way they stop the line in case an issue is detected, till it's fixed.

I fully agree with what is said: why not port LineageOS to BV phones and focus only on hardware?
Jean

jean_bruder wrote:

I fully agree with what is said: why not port LineageOS to BV phones and focus only on hardware?
Jean

There are restrictions on the redistribution of Google software outside Android. Although it seems you can work-around that by using Open GApps.