87% of Android smartphones are insecure and that's no joke

British scientists proved that Android devices are highly dangerous when it comes to you and your data. It's no joke — researchers at the University of Cambridge did serious research on the devices: analyzing over 20,000 smartphones by various vendors to discover that 87.7% of Android devices are susceptible to at least one critical vulnerability.

This dreadful fact emerged as byproduct of a study whose goal was to reveal whose devices (speaking of vendors) were the most secure.

The experiment was conducted with help of ordinary people and their ordinary smartphones: the participants consented to set up a special app called Device Analyzer from Google Play. This application helped to find out how resistant the devices were to the most widespread attacks by sending data on what versions of software were installed on the device.

But what can users do now to ensure their devices are protected? Here are simple tips:

1. Apply updates as soon as they are available. Do not ignore them.

2. Download apps only from trusted sources and look out for rogue websites. It does not guarantee you are spared security issues, yet it is a means of avoiding a certain class of threats.

3. Use a security solution – if smartphone vendors are slow to enable security patches and save users from exploits, antivirus companies might do a better job here.

4. And just try to be in the loop: read security news. Otherwise you would never know, for instance, that it's better to disable default MMS downloads to avoid issues relevant to the Stagefright vulnerability.