Millions of Samsung Galaxy owners issued urgent Wi-Fi setting warning
18.03.2023 - 16:55
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Millions of Samsung customers are being warned to change a wi-fi setting on their devices after a worrying security flaw was discovered by Google's security team.
A number of popular Samsung Galaxy smartphones, including last year's S22, appear to have been hit by the bug which could allow hackers to attack devices remotely. Google's security team at Project Zero discovered the issue and it's not a threat that should be ignored, reports the Mirror.
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.
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"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 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.
• Find "Settings"
• Press the phone icon.
• Press the menu icon.
• Press Settings.
• Press the indicator next to "WiFi Calling" to turn the function
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