Android relies heavily on the Linux kernel for enforcement of its security model. To better protect the kernel, weve enabled a number of mechanisms within Android. At a high level these protections are grouped into two categoriesmemory protections and attack surface reduction. These protections are designed to maintain the integrity of the kernel in spite of vulnerabilities. In Android Nougat, access to perf will be blocked by default in order to reduce the attack surface for the vast majority of Android users. The kernels perf system provides infrastructure for performance measurement and can be used for analyzing both kernel and userspace applications.”]
Source: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/07/protecting-android-with-more-linux.html