17 March 2023 , 13:38
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A number of popular Samsung Galaxy smartphones, including last year's S22, appear to have been hit by a number of serious security flaws that could allow hackers to attack devices remotely. The worrying flaw has been discovered by Google's security team at Project Zero and it's not a threat that should be ignored.
All a cyber criminal needs is the victim's mobile number which can then be used to compromise the phone without the user knowing anything is wrong.
As Project Zero's Tim Willis explains: "Tests conducted by Project Zero confirm that those four vulnerabilities allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level with no user interaction, and require only that the attacker know the victim's phone number. With limited additional research and development, we believe that skilled attackers would be able to quickly create an operational exploit to compromise affected devices silently and remotely."
Samsung Galaxy users are being urged to check their smartphones (Samsung • Getty)Samsung has been made aware of the bug and is working on a fix as it takes customer safety seriously. However, until that is pushed out to devices there is a way to stop an attack in its tracks.
According to Google, users who wish to protect themselves from the new vulnerabilities can turn off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in their device settings. Turning off these settings will remove the exploitation risk of these vulnerabilities.
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How to turn off Wi-Fi calling
• Find "Settings"
• Press the phone icon.
• Press the menu icon.
• Press Settings.
• Press the indicator next to "WiFi Calling" to turn the function on or off.
• Press the Home key to return to the home screen.
So which Samsung phones are affected?
It appears that the threat only targets phones that use Samsung's own Exynos processor and not devices powered by Qualcomm.
Although the latest S23 range no longer uses Exynos chips most Galaxy devices launched in the UK before this year do.
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These include the Galaxy S22, Galaxy M33 and Galaxy M12.
If you own one of these phones then head to the settings and switch off Wi-Fi calling as soon as possible.
Here's the full list of phones thought to be hit by the bug.
Samsung Galaxy S22, Galaxy M33, Galaxy M13, Galaxy M12, Galaxy A71, Galaxy A53, Galaxy A33, Galaxy A21, Galaxy A13, Galaxy A12 and Galaxy A04 series phones.
This latest news comes as Galaxy owners were recently urged to download an update that fixed more issues with one so bad it was given a "Critical" rating.
In total, this latest release mends 39 bugs from Google and another 11 that are specific to Samsung devices.