Samsung's Galaxy S23 phone series gets safeguards against zero-click malware attacks

Date:
Mon, 20 Feb 2023 14:00:02 +0000

Description:
Samsung introduces the Message Guard, a "virtual quarantine" for files received via Samsung Messages and Google Messages.

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Samsung has just released a new security tool that aims to protect its smartphone users from zero-click attacks : those that don't require a
victim's input.

In a blog post announcing the new feature, Samsung noted that (via The Hacker News ) these kinds of attacks were previously discovered in the Apple ecosystem, when threat actors managed to compromise an endpoint by simply sending an image via SMS.

The company named it Message Guard, and its currently available on Galaxy S23 devices, for Samsung Messages and Messages by Google. Samsung Message Guard

Images in zero-click exploits contain malicious code that, on receipt, give the attackers access to the device. It's so surreptitious that, in theory,
the victim could be asleep when the image is received, and all their data could be exfiltrated by the time they wake up in the morning.



While there's currently no evidence of such attacks being perpetrated on Android devices, Samsung believes that a pre-emptive strike is best.

Explaining how the feature works, Samsung described Message Guard as an advanced sandbox, or a kind of virtual quarantine. Read more

NSO spyware returns to target iPhones with new zero-click exploit

Zero-click iPhone exploit abused to launch NSO spyware attacks

These are the best encrypted messaging apps right now

When an image file arrives, it is trapped and isolated from the rest of the device," Samsung explained. "This prevents malicious code from accessing your phones files or interacting with its operating system."

"Samsung Message Guard checks the file bit by bit and processes it in a controlled environment to ensure it cannot infect the rest of your device, Samsung explained.

The feature is turned on by default on all Samsung Galaxy S23 devices, so no interaction by the users is required. Samsung also said that the feature runs silently and largely invisibly in the background.

The company confirmed that the feature will make it to older Samsung phones (all models sporting One UI 5.1 or higher), as well as other text messaging apps later in 2023. Here's the best malware protection right now



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/samsungs-galaxy-s23-phone-series-gets-safeguard s-against-zero-click-malware-attacks


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