Is Gingerbread still safe to use for basic phone calls?

[worknman]

A friend of mine just called and said he broke his VZW phone and asked me if I had an old one lying around I could sell him. As a matter of fact, I have a Droid Incredible I'm not using, so told him he could have it.

However, it's running Cyanogenmod 7.1 (Gingerbread) fully unlocked and rooted, and I'm curious if this is still safe to use? He says he only needs basic phone functionality and wouldn't be downloading any apps. I'm really not sure how to get this back to stock... I booted it up and Clockwork doesn't seem to be working properly, and I'd really rather just give it to him as-is and not have to screw with it.

I just want to make sure he isn't going to get p0wned just by having it in basic 'phone mode' in public with wifi off. I wouldn't think it was THAT insecure, but still wanted to ask

 

[Indoler]

Please define 'safe'.

Gingerbread is 2, or is it 3 years old.
So afaic all bets are off, TBH.

 

[worknman]

Please define 'safe'.

Is it possible to do any 'drive-by' hacking on it if wifi is off, but 3g is on?

 

[UJ95x]

He's fine. There are certainly some security issues that have been patched on newer versions of Android, but nothing that he would have to worry about on a daily basis. Nobody is going to hack into his phone, especially not on a cellular connection and not WiFi.

Sent from my Galaxy S4 running SOKP 4.4.2

 

[raptir]

Most of the security issues that have been found and patched were related to WiFi (only an issue on public hotspots) or app installation. As long as he's careful about what he installs he will be fine.