In a shocking revelation, technical experts discovered a security risk which affected more than 600 million devices of the world’s most favorite electronics company, Samsung. Apparently, the risk was unearthed by a mobile security researcher Ryan Welton of NowSecure. Ryan uncovered the risk from a pre-installed keyboard that lets hackers to remotely execute code as a privileged (system) user.
With this flaw, the attackers can remotely access sensors and resources like GPS, camera and microphone, install malicious apps without users’ knowledge, tamper the functioning of the mobile phones and other devices and apps installed on them, eavesdrop on incoming
and outgoing voice calls or messages, and also access sensitive personal data like pictures and text messages.
Unfortunately, the flawed keyboard app cannot be uninstalled. The Samsung devices users can protect their data from risk by avoiding insecure Wi-Fi networks, contact their network carriers for patch information and timing and by using a different mobile devices.
Samsung started providing a patch to mobile network operators in early 2015. But it is not known if the carriers provided the patch to the devices on their network. As of 16th June 2015, below are the Samsung mobile devices that have been impacted by the risk and their carriers and patch status:
.Galaxy S6 for Verizon (Unpatched), AT&T (Unknown), Sprint (Unpatched) and T-mobile (Unknown)
.Galaxy S5 for Verizon (Unknown), AT&T (Unknown), Sprint (Unknown) and T-mobile (Unpatched)
.Galaxy S4 for Verizon (Unknown), AT&T (Unknown), Sprint (Unknown) and T-mobile (Unknown)
.Galaxy S4 Mini for Verizon (Unknown), AT&T (Unpatched), Sprint (Unknown) and T-mobile (Unknown)
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