Indian government issues HIGH risk alert for Samsung users; Check details

By Team Asianet Newsable | First Published Dec 15, 2023, 11:48 AM IST

The security advisory from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) highlights multiple vulnerabilities impacting millions of Samsung Galaxy phones, spanning both older and newer models. The security alert categorizes the concern as high-risk, emphasizing the urgent need for existing Samsung users to promptly update their phone's operating system.

More security warnings have been issued by the Indian government this week, and this time it is for those people who use Samsung Galaxy phones. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has released a security notice on many vulnerabilities that impact millions of Samsung Galaxy phones, including both older and newer models. It is imperative that current Samsung phone owners upgrade their phone's operating system or firmware immediately in light of the security alert that was released on December 13 and the high risk rating assigned to the issue.

According to the security agency, the problem stems from a number of factors, including poor access control in Knox features, a vulnerability in face recognition software that allows integer overflow, authorization concerns with the AR Emoji app, and faulty handling of failures in Knox security software. Furthermore, erroneous data size verification in the softsimd library and several memory corruption vulnerabilities in different system components might exist.

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These problems have impacted Android 11, 12, 13, and 14 software versions on a variety of Samsung Galaxy phones that are sold in the market. The problem is undoubtedly a major one when you take into account the quantity of phones that are using these Android versions.

According to the agency, these vulnerabilities "may enable an attacker to cause stack-based buffer overflows and heap overflows, gain access to sensitive data, send broadcasts with elevated privileges, read AR Emoji sandbox data, circumvent Knox Guard locks by altering system time, access arbitrary files, and compromise the targeted system."

To address these problems, Samsung has already published a software patch. Owners of Samsung phones running Android 11 or later are advised to check for the update immediately.

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Here's how you use your phone to check:

On a Samsung Galaxy phone, choose Settings.
To update the software, scroll down.
To check for a new version, tap Update. Then, install the update and restart the phone.

If there isn't any update, you should proceed with additional caution while clicking on links or downloading anything from unidentified sources. Additionally, until the security flaw on your smartphone is resolved, make sure you only download apps from reputable app shops and avoid sideloading them.

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