Samsung Exynos modem zero day

Tech Talk Android
1

Looks pretty serious. I can’t work out if this is addressed in March updates. Looks like it’s partially fixed for the Pixels.

'Meanwhile, Project Zero lists the following products as likely to be impacted:

  • Mobile devices from Samsung: S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21, A13, A12 and A04 series
  • Mobile devices from Vivo: S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series
  • Mobile devices from Google: Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series
  • Any wearables that use the Exynos W920 chipset
  • Any vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset’

Check Your Samsung Smartphone Now To See If You Are Safe From This New 0-Click Attack (forbes.com)

2

It’s only partially fixed because not all Pixels have the March update. Actually, I’m glad whatever was stopping people on T-Mobile from getting updates (which include Google Fi users…) was solved before last month’s updates, so it’s only when Google is just being late releasing updates for a model you may not get an update for.

And my Pixel phone is too old to even worry about this issue anyway.

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3

The advice they’ve given for this, is not good. They suggest you should disable Voice over WiFi (which is fine) but also VoLTE, which is probably impossible, and definitely not good if you actually expect you make phone calls with your phone. At least in North America, they have disabled 2G and 3G so VoLTE is your only way to make any voice call. On Pixel devices it is not actually possible to disable VoLTE at all (there is a slider, but it is set to on and not enabled for user interaction.)

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4

No VoLTE setting at all on my S22. I assume it’s on all the time, so that advice doesn’t help much. And without WiFi calling at home, my phone is pretty pointless as there’s no mobile service in the house.

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