Without changing any options, your Pixel 10 has just closed one of the most sensitive security vulnerabilities in our smartphones: its modem. This network component, invisible but constantly connected to 4G and 5G antennas, has for years been the ideal target for cybersecurity researchers and hackers alike.
Problem: the firmware for this modem is almost always written in C or C++, fast but memory-insensitive languages, where a simple buffer overflow can be enough to execute code remotely, sometimes without a single click. With the series Pixel 10, Google finally changes its method by attacking the root of the problem, a shift that many actors have put off for years.
Pixel 10: a modem security flaw finally addressed at the root?
In a smartphone, the modem or baseband manages all cellular communications, from calls to SMS to data. It runs on its own processor, with largely proprietary and poorly audited code. When a memory vulnerability slips in, an attacker can inject code directly via the mobile network, without going through Android.
Security researchers have been sounding the alarm for a long time, but most manufacturers have simply corrected a few flaws, without calling into question the C/C++ in these firmwares. As Android Authority points out, this structural weakness of modems has remained largely under the rug, even though it affects billions of devices.
Pixel 10 and Rust: what really changes in the modem firmware?
On April 10, in a blog post dedicated to security, Google detailed a major change for its Pixel 10. The firm explains that it “integrated the Rust programming language into the Pixel 10 modem firmware” in order to block memory-related vulnerabilities, as reported by Phonandroid. A Rust module now plays the role of DNS parser directly within the baseband.
This module is based on the library hickory-protoadapted to work without Android’s standard libraries. Since DNS is one of the entry points most exposed to untrusted data, treating it in a memory-safe language like Rust eliminates an entire class of exploitable bugs at once, from overflows to uses of freed pointers.
For the user, this modem security update Pixel 10 is invisible. No change in flow rate, no signal drop, nothing in the interface. But on the attackers’ side, crashing or hijacking the modem via memory flaws becomes more complicated, because the Rust compiler refuses to produce firmware containing this type of error.
Pixel 10: which smartphones are affected and what is Google preparing for the future?
For the moment, only the range Pixel 10 take advantage of this reinforced modem firmware. Google talks about a first step and plans to expand Rust to other baseband bricks and the next Pixels, while most competing modems still remain in C/C++.