M1006: Use Recent OS Version
New mobile operating system versions bring not only patches against discovered vulnerabilities but also often bring security architecture improvements that provide resilience against potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses that have not yet been discovered. They may also bring improvements that block use of observed adversary techniques.
Security context for executives and security teams
M1006: Use Recent OS Version describes New mobile operating system versions bring not only patches against discovered vulnerabilities but also often bring security architecture improvements that provide resilience against potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses that have not yet been discovered. They may also bring improvements that block use of observed adversary techniques.
Executive priority
M1006: Use Recent OS Version is an official MITRE ATT&CK mitigation. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.
Technical view
Security teams should validate M1006: Use Recent OS Version by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (the platforms named in the official object), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
Detection direction
- Validate whether M1006: Use Recent OS Version appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
- Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
- Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.
Mitigation priorities
- Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
- Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
- Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits
Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.
This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Use Recent OS Version
New mobile operating system versions bring not only patches against discovered vulnerabilities but also often bring security architecture improvements that provide resilience against potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses that have not yet been discovered. They may also bring improvements that block use of observed adversary techniques.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
Techniques used
This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile | T1424 | Process Discovery | Android 7 and later iOS versions introduced changes that prevent applications from performing Process Discovery without elevated privileges. |
| Mobile | T1628.001 | Suppress Application IconSub-technique | Android 10 introduced changes to prevent malicious applications from fully suppressing their icon in the launcher.CitationAndroid 10 Limitations to Hiding App IconsCitationLauncherApps getActivityList |
| Mobile | T1641.001 | Transmitted Data ManipulationSub-technique | Android 10 prevents applications from accessing clipboard data unless the application is on the foreground or is set as the device’s default input method editor (IME).CitationAndroid 10 Privacy Changes |
| Mobile | T1430 | Location Tracking | On Android 11 and up, users are not prompted with the option to select “Allow all the time” and must navigate to the settings page to manually select this option. On iOS 14 and up, users can select whether to provide Precise Location for each installed application. |
| Mobile | T1417.002 | GUI Input CaptureSub-technique | The `HIDE_OVERLAY_WINDOWS` permission was introduced in Android 12 allowing apps to hide overlay windows of type `TYPE_APPLICATION_OVERLAY` drawn by other apps with the `SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW` permission, preventing other applications from creating overlay windows on top of the current application.CitationAndroid 12 Features |
| Mobile | T1629.001 | Prevent Application RemovalSub-technique | Recent versions of Android modified how device administrator applications are uninstalled, making it easier for the user to remove them. |
| Mobile | T1636 | Protected User Data | OS feature updates often enhance security and privacy around permissions. |
| Mobile | T1626.001 | Device Administrator PermissionsSub-technique | Changes were introduced in Android 7 to make abuse of device administrator permissions more difficult.CitationGoogleIO2016 |
| Mobile | T1632.001 | Code Signing Policy ModificationSub-technique | Mobile OSes have implemented measures to make it more difficult to trick users into installing untrusted certificates and configurations. iOS 10.3 and higher add an additional step for users to install new trusted CA certificates and configuration profiles. On Android, apps that target compatibility with Android 7 and higher (API Level 24) default to only trusting CA certificates that are bundled with the operating system, not CA certificates that are added by the user or administrator, hence decreasing their susceptibility to successful adversary-in-the-middle attack.CitationSymantec-iOSProfile2CitationAndroid-TrustedCA |
| Mobile | T1409 | Stored Application Data | Android 9 introduced a new security policy that prevents applications from reading or writing data to other applications’ internal storage directories, regardless of permissions. |
| Mobile | T1407 | Download New Code at Runtime | Applications that target Android API level 29 or higher cannot execute native code stored in the application's internal data storage directory, limiting the ability of applications to download and execute native code at runtime. CitationAndroid 10 Execute |
| Mobile | T1627 | Execution Guardrails | New OS releases frequently contain additional limitations or controls around device location access. |
| Mobile | T1635 | Steal Application Access Token | iOS 11 introduced a first-come-first-served principle for URIs, allowing only the prior installed app to be launched via the URI.CitationTrend Micro iOS URL Hijacking Android 6 introduced App Links. |
| Mobile | T1512 | Video Capture | Android 9 and above restricts access to the mic, camera, and other device sensors from applications running in the background. iOS 14 and Android 12 introduced a visual indicator on the status bar (green dot) when an application is accessing the device’s camera.CitationAndroid Capture Sensor 2019 |
| Mobile | T1641 | Data Manipulation | Recent OS versions have limited access to certain APIs unless certain conditions are met, making Data Manipulation more difficult |
| Mobile | T1624.001 | Broadcast ReceiversSub-technique | Android 8 introduced additional limitations on the implicit intents that an application can register for.CitationAndroid Changes to System Broadcasts |
| Mobile | T1422 | System Network Configuration Discovery | Android 10 introduced changes that prevent normal applications from accessing sensitive device identifiers.CitationTelephonyManager |
| Mobile | T1661 | Application Versioning | Android 11 and above implement application hibernation, which can hibernate an application that has not been used for a few months and can reset the application’s permission requests.Citationapp_hibernation |
| Mobile | T1420 | File and Directory Discovery | Security architecture improvements in each new version of Android and iOS make it more difficult to escalate privileges. Additionally, newer versions of Android have strengthened the sandboxing applied to applications, restricting their ability to enumerate file system contents. |
| Mobile | T1636.005 | AccountsSub-technique | OS feature updates often enhance security and privacy around permissions. |
| Mobile | T1642 | Endpoint Denial of Service | Android 7 changed how the Device Administrator password APIs function. |
| Mobile | T1629.002 | Device LockoutSub-technique | Recent versions of Android modified how device administrator applications are uninstalled, making it easier for the user to remove them. Android 7 introduced updates that revoke standard device administrators’ ability to reset the device’s passcode. |
| Mobile | T1429 | Audio Capture | Android 9 and above restricts access to microphone, camera, and other sensors from background applications.CitationAndroid Capture Sensor 2019 |
| Mobile | T1638 | Adversary-in-the-Middle | Recent OS versions have made it more difficult for applications to register as VPN providers. |
| Mobile | T1417 | Input Capture | The `HIDE_OVERLAY_WINDOWS` permission was introduced in Android 12 allowing apps to hide overlay windows of type `TYPE_APPLICATION_OVERLAY` drawn by other apps with the `SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW` permission, preventing other applications from creating overlay windows on top of the current application.CitationAndroid 12 Features |
| Mobile | T1627.001 | GeofencingSub-technique | New OS releases frequently contain additional limitations or controls around device location access. |
| Mobile | T1632 | Subvert Trust Controls | Mobile OSes have implemented measures to make it more difficult to trick users into installing untrusted certificates and configurations. iOS 10.3 and higher add an additional step for users to install new trusted CA certificates and configuration profiles. On Android, apps that target compatibility with Android 7 and higher (API Level 24) default to only trusting CA certificates that are bundled with the operating system, not CA certificates that are added by the user or administrator, hence decreasing their susceptibility to successful adversary-in-the-middle attack.CitationSymantec-iOSProfile2CitationAndroid-TrustedCA |
| Mobile | T1624 | Event Triggered Execution | Android 8 introduced additional limitations on the implicit intents that an application can register for.CitationAndroid Changes to System Broadcasts |
| Mobile | T1418.001 | Security Software DiscoverySub-technique | Android 11 introduced privacy enhancements to package visibility, filtering results that are returned from the package manager. iOS 12 removed the private API that could previously be used to list installed applications on non-app store applications.CitationAndroid Package Visibility |
| Mobile | T1414 | Clipboard Data | Android 10 introduced changes to prevent applications from accessing clipboard data if they are not in the foreground or set as the device’s default IME.CitationAndroid 10 Privacy Changes |
| Mobile | T1458 | Replication Through Removable Media | iOS 11.4.1 and higher introduce USB Restricted Mode, which disables data access through the device's charging port under certain conditions (making the port only usable for power), likely preventing this technique from working.CitationElcomsoft-iOSRestricted |
| Mobile | T1422.002 | Wi-Fi DiscoverySub-technique | Android 10 introduced changes that prevent normal applications from accessing sensitive device identifiers.CitationTelephonyManager |
| Mobile | T1418 | Software Discovery | Android 11 introduced privacy enhancements to package visibility, filtering results that are returned from the package manager. iOS 12 removed the private API that could previously be used to list installed applications on non-app store applications.CitationAndroid Package Visibility |
| Mobile | T1635.001 | URI HijackingSub-technique | iOS 11 introduced a first-come-first-served principle for URIs, allowing only the prior installed app to be launched via the URI.CitationTrend Micro iOS URL Hijacking Android 6 introduced App Links. |
| Mobile | T1577 | Compromise Application Executable | Many vulnerabilities related to injecting code into existing applications have been patched in previous Android releases. |
All related ATT&CK context
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates.
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.2 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 01133adea15c… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Older bundle | 01133adea15c… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
- [1]mitre-attackM1006Open source URL
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