A mysterious notification recently started showing up on Samsung phones at the same time as a data breach occurred. The company says the two are unrelated with the latter affecting a limited number of phone owners and s. Here’s what you need to know.
Samsung personal details of others. This was most commonly observed when s tried to to their Samsung to change their s as a security measure. When accessing the s page, the s were either presented with their own details, no details, or in some cases, someone else's details.
In comments provided by Samsung to The , the company has confirmed that some s were able to access the details of other s. Samsung says this only affected “a small number of s” although the report did suggest the number might be much higher than what many might assume “small” to mean. Further adding to its comments, Samsung said it immediately disabled the ability to access the Samsung store until the issue was fixed, and that the company plans to s who were likely affected by the issue. In a separate statement to Sammobile, the company confirmed the notification and the data breach were unrelated and that in total fewer than 150 people were thought to be affected.
Latest Data Breach Raises Samsung Security Questions
Up until the most recent confirmations, Samsung had remained fairly quiet when it came to providing firm details on what actually happened - with the nature of how the events unfolded only further adding to the mystery. For one thing, the internal test element has raised questions and especially considering this resulted in notifications being pushed to 's devices. This has proven especially concerning as a number of s reported the offending app had already been disabled. This aspect raises two specific questions with the most worrying being how was a disabled app able to deliver a notification in the first place? The second question is more of a generic one on why there’s still no option to uninstall ‘stock’ apps. While some might need to be installed on devices to function properly, if they can be disabled, then their need to remain installed would seem to be less justifiable. This last question is a question that can be leveled at every phone-maker that actively includes their own apps on a device, not just Samsung.
Likewise, while the company has now confirmed that the notification and the data breach on its website were unrelated, the timing is most certainly going to raise additional security concerns. One event on its own is enough to worry some s and security advocates, but both occurring together is only going to further suggest there might have been wider issues at play here. Coincidence or not, there still appears to be questions for Samsung to answer.