The emergency-call bug is the one to check on other people's phones, not just your own. A message you never see can crash the phone app mid-call, including a call to emergency services. Older relatives tend to have exactly the phones that update last, or not at all.
Checking takes ten seconds: Settings, About phone, then the Android security update date. It should say November 2026, or at least October for the SMS fix. Then check "Google Play system update" separately, because some fixes only come that way. If a phone is stuck on a date from months ago, it no longer gets patches, which is worth knowing before something goes wrong.
https://www.esecurityplanet.com/cybersecurity/news-google-november-2026-android-security-update/
Read the thread: https://briskness-byte.github.io/thread/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esecurityplanet.com%2Fcybersecurity%2Fnews-google-november-2026-android-security-update%2F
Checking takes ten seconds: Settings, About phone, then the Android security update date. It should say November 2026, or at least October for the SMS fix. Then check "Google Play system update" separately, because some fixes only come that way. If a phone is stuck on a date from months ago, it no longer gets patches, which is worth knowing before something goes wrong.
https://www.esecurityplanet.com/cybersecurity/news-google-november-2026-android-security-update/
Read the thread: https://briskness-byte.github.io/thread/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esecurityplanet.com%2Fcybersecurity%2Fnews-google-november-2026-android-security-update%2F