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Google ushers in December with Android's latest security patches, plus Wallet upgrades for Wear OS
- Google has shared the latest Android security fixes with its 2024-12-01 and 2024-12-05 patch levels.
- Updates are not yet available for Pixel phones, but should arrive within days.
- Google Play Services is bringing additional card support to Wallet for Wear OS smartwatches.
December is here, and it won’t be long now before we’re looking at 2024 in the rear-view mirror and getting ready for all the new phones coming our way in the new year. Before it does, though, we’ve got one last month to get through, and Google is kicking it off with its latest updates to the Android Security Bulletin and Google Play Services.
Let’s start off with Play Services, where Google shares that its new version 24.47 release has a few improvements to bring to Wallet. In addition to expanding access to additional nations, using Wallet on a Wear OS smartwatch will now support more types of passes, including corporate badges, hotel room keys, and campus IDs. We also learn about a few developer-focused tweaks, but this Wallet stuff is really the only user-facing changes here worth noting.
As for the new Security Bulletin, Google’s highlighting fixes for a number of bugs, but this list is not nearly as extensive as we’ve seen from some months. There’s an initial 2024-12-01 security patch level that covers what look like the six biggest vulnerabilities here — five playing a role in escalation of privilege exploits, and one putting systems at risk for remote code execution. The 2024-12-05 patch level, meanwhile, address eight software flaws specific to Qualcomm, MediaTek, and PowerVR components.
What we haven’t seen yet, though, is the corresponding Pixel Update Bulletin. And indeed, making a quick pass over the Pixel OTA downloads currently available, we’re not seeing any December downloads.
This month should be a big one, because in addition to the latest security patches hitting Pixel phones, we’re also anticipating the release of Google’s next Pixel Drop. The company’s been working for a while now on its next wave of Android 15 features for Pixel hardware, and it’s only been a little over a week now since we got the point release QPR1 Beta 3.1. Nothing’s set in stone, but we wouldn’t be surprised if right now we’re only just a couple days away from the new Drop dropping. Keep checking with Android Authority to get all the details on it when it does.