Researchers have discovered that over 100 million Samsung Galaxy models shipped with a fatal security vulnerability. Theoretically, criminals could have used these to gain access to the smartphones.
Samsung is pretty adept at rolling out security updates to its vast repertoire of devices, often before Google gets involved. However, many of the Samsung smartphones sold in recent years have come with an embarrassing vulnerability that has allowed hackers to steal sensitive information from the devices.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel found that several models of the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S21 did not have their cryptographic keys stored properly, which allowed hackers to extract the stored information, including including sensitive data such as passwords.
Samsung vulnerability: Users of older Android versions should update
The report details how the researchers bypassed security measures on Samsung devices. Most of this is technical jargon and will make little sense to anyone unfamiliar with security. However, an important question remains. Should you be concerned?
The answer is no, mainly because the above issues have already been fixed by Samsung – being notified immediately upon discovery of the issue. The first fix was released with the August 2021 security patch and another vulnerability was fixed with the October 2021 patch.
However, if your Samsung phone comes with an older patch, you should update the device immediately.
This post originally appeared on Schmidti’s blog.
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