Google today announced that it will start rolling out monthly security updates for Nexus devices to patch important security vulnerabilities as and when discovered in its mobile OS.

The company reveals in its announcement that since the last three years, it has been providing monthly bulletins to Android OEMs to keep them aware of important security issues plaguing the OS so that they can roll out a fix for their devices.

Google further goes on to promise that its Nexus devices will receive regular OTA updates each month focused on security starting from today itself. The first security update that starts rolling out from today (August 5th) will contain patches to fix the StageFright issues, and will be rolled out to the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7, Nexus 9, Nexus 10, and Nexus Player. The patch has also been released to the public through the Android Open Source Project for OEMs and developers to incorporate in their build of Android.

Lastly, Google promises that Nexus devices will receive important security patches for three years from their initial availability or until 18 months after they were stopped being sold through the Google Store. This will be over and above the two years of promised major platform updates for these handsets.

Google has always been a step behind Apple in rolling out updates to fix major security vulnerabilities in its OS. Thus, it is nice to see the company taking an initiative to roll out monthly security updates for Nexus devices to keep them safe and secure.

In addition to Google, Samsung also announced that it is in talks with carriers from across the globe for its new Android security update policy so that it can roll out monthly security updates to its Galaxy devices.