What can we learn from Android for other embedded Linux systems security? Grazer Linuxtage 2026

Android has become the primary operating system for a significant part of the global population, and it uses Linux at its core. While the user space stack on top of the kernel is vastly different from the usual desktop distributions, lessons learnt in Android platform development are valuable to other (embedded) Linux systems. In particular, Android has pioneered the scaled deployment of a number of security measures, from application level sandboxing and permissions to fine-grained SELinux policies and dm-verity for system partition integrity. However, the most difficult challenge seems protecting against insider attacks, potentially with access to private signing keys. These mitigations can be used for other embedded Linux systems as well, and this talk should be seen as a call to action to try and adopt some of them more broadly in the embedded Linux ecosystem.