Cybersecurity expert warns against using outdated smartphones as daily drivers

Using an outdated smartphone can turn a nostalgic gadget into a high-risk security liability. Faith LeRoux, a cybersecurity student and writer at Android Police, warns that devices no longer receiving security updates are prime targets for malware and data theft.

To protect her data, LeRoux treats legacy hardware as non-essential tools rather than primary devices. Her strict personal protocol includes a total ban on banking and payment applications, as well as avoiding the storage of sensitive emails or passwords. She further minimizes the attack surface by refusing to sideload software or install new applications on these devices. "They're no longer my daily driver or a place to store personal data," LeRoux stated, noting that she remains cautious because OEMs will not release patches for unsupported hardware.

The vulnerability gap

The risk is not theoretical; unpatched devices are susceptible to critical flaws that modern updates would otherwise resolve. One such example is CVE-2025-21043, a memory allocation flaw found in a third-party image-parsing library (libimagecodec.quram) that affected Samsung Galaxy devices running Android 13 and above. Without official patches, such vulnerabilities leave a permanent open door for exploits.

While some enthusiasts turn to custom ROMs like LineageOS to bring updated Google security bulletins to old hardware, this approach involves its own trade-offs. Installing these ROMs typically requires unlocking the bootloader, which can compromise the device's physical security. Furthermore, software-based workarounds cannot fix inherent hardware-level vulnerabilities.

Why isolation matters

Many users retain old phones for secondary utility or sentimentality, often unaware that the lack of security support makes them easy targets for modern exploits. By establishing "soft rules"—essentially isolating the device from the user's digital identity—the potential impact of a breach is neutralized. If a device contains no banking apps and no sensitive credentials, a successful exploit yields little of value to an attacker.

What to watch

As smartphone manufacturers continue to shorten the official support windows for their devices, the number of vulnerable handsets in circulation is expected to grow. Users should monitor for critical CVEs affecting their specific hardware and consider the security trade-offs of custom ROMs. For those who refuse to discard legacy hardware, the safest path remains treating the device as a sandbox: useful for basic tasks, but entirely disconnected from sensitive personal and financial data.