Security vulnerability in 100 million Samsung smartphones

You would expect a technology giant like Samsung to avoid the pitfall of releasing devices with security flaws that could cause serious problems for users.

After all, Samsung's engineers are highly experienced when it comes to security updates and have spent years ensuring that its vast range of devices is effectively protected. The South Korean company has very often… even beaten Google to the punch in rolling out smartphone security updates.

And yet, it seems that many Samsung phones sold in recent years reached buyers with a security flaw, leaving hackers free to break in and steal sensitive information.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel found that many Galaxy S8, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S20, and Galaxy S21 phone models were not storing their cryptographic keys correctly, allowing hackers to extract information stored on the devices, which could include sensitive data such as passwords.

The report states that the researchers bypassed the security measures on Samsung devices. This raises an understandable question: should owners be worried?

The answer is no! Mainly because the issues mentioned above have already been fixed by Samsung, which was notified of the problem as soon as it was discovered. The first fix began rolling out with the August 2021 security update, and a subsequent vulnerability was addressed with the October 2021 security update.

All Samsung smartphone users need to do is make sure their device has received one of the updates mentioned above. If Samsung has ended support for their device, they should consider using a custom ROM.