Windows 11 (and Doom) in a VM on Android

Windows Phone? © Google.

Google has included virtualization functions in the upcoming version of its mobile OS, Android 13, which answers to the tasty codename Tiramisu. Ingenious hackers immediately hijacked the functionality to create things as strange and fun as they are completely useless. Developer kdrag0n, for example, figured out how to play Doom on an ARM Windows virtual machine using a Pixel 6.

Though Google hasn’t officially said anything about this new virtualization potential, the goal is probably to use VMs as sandboxes for security and privacy of certain operations. Imagine that instead of processing sensitive data at the regular application-permission level, the data could be handled by a separate operating system. Attackers would have to break through the app security model, then Android, then the hypervisor, then this other, private OS, which would make their task a lot harder.

⇨ Ars Technica, Ron Amadeo, “Android 13 virtualization hack runs Windows (and Doom) in a VM on Android.”

2022-02-16