For the Pixel 3, Google is betting on a chip to bring Android security

Rick Osterloh, Google's senior vice president of hardware, talks about the Titan M security chip at the Pixel 3 event last week.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Google is calling the Pixel 3 its "most secure phone yet." On Android, there's not much competition.

During Google's Pixel 3 event in New York last Tuesday, the company mentioned that their latest phones would be the first devices to have its Titan M security chip. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Google first announced its Titan chip for its cloud servers in 2017, which keeps services like Gmail and Google Drive safe from cyberattacks.

In July, Google also announced the Titan Security Key, which doesn't actually use the Titan chip.

The Pixel 3 would be the first time that Google's own security chip is in the hands of everyday people, as the previous Titan chips were only used internally on Google's data centers. In a blog post on Wednesday, Google detailed how the chips work and why it makes the Pixel 3 the most secure Android phone you could get.

Android, the most popular mobile operating system in the world, also deals with a bad reputation for security after years of flaws and vulnerabilities.

Its open platform, which provided freedom for users to install any app they wanted and for manufacturers to pre-install apps, also lead to security headaches. It also doesn't help that while Google pushes out security updates to fix new vulnerabilities, not everyone is on the latest version of Android to receive them.

By comparison, Apple's iOS, with its restricted App Store and sandboxed environment, has dealt with much less security issues. For years, Apple leverage security with hardware with its Secure Enclave, a key manager on main processor that stores encrypted keys.

The Titan M chip is its own dedicated chip though, not a part of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, which already has its own security features.

The chip introduces Verified Boot to Android phones, a feature that has been on Chromebooks for years and keeps devices secure on start-up. It makes sure that your phone and the apps you're using haven't been tampered with by hackers.

In the past, hackers were able to use Android vulnerabilities to downgrade phones to a less secure version, opening it up to more severe attacks.

It also means that attackers can't update your Pixel 3 to a tampered version. The Titan M chip makes sure that no updates can come unless the owner enters a password on the device.

The chip also looks to protect the Pixel 3's lockscreen passcode by encrypting and storing the security keys on the hardware.

It also creates and stores private keys for third-party apps and payments. Google believes that these security checks means one day you'll be able to safely voting online, mentioning e-voting as one of the new possibilities in its blog post.

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