> ...owing to the horrific mess that is their kernel situation.
Do you mean OEM drivers or the Android Kernel, specifically?
Google invests quite a bit on hardening the (Android Commons) Kernel including compile-time/link-time & runtime mitigations (both in hardware & software).
The drivers; last I heard, literally every Android device on the market was using a forked kernel in order to support its hardware. And Google keeps trying things to improve that situation, but... https://lwn.net/Articles/680109/ was ~9 years ago and since then not even Google themselves have managed to ship a device running a mainline kernel. Supposedly it should get better with their latest attempt to just put drivers and user space, but 1. I haven't heard of any devices actually shipping with an unmodified kernel, probably because 2. AIUI that doesn't cover all drivers anyways.
Do you mean OEM drivers or the Android Kernel, specifically?
Google invests quite a bit on hardening the (Android Commons) Kernel including compile-time/link-time & runtime mitigations (both in hardware & software).
Ex: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/10/control-fl...