Several vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Exynos chipsets may allow attackers to remotely compromise specific Samsung Galaxy, Vivo and Google Pixel mobile phones with no user interaction.
“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,” Google Project Zero researchers have noted.
If you’re using one of the affected devices, you can protect yourself from by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE in your device settings, Willis shared.
Wi-Fi calling uses a wireless internet connection instead of cellular signal to carry out voice calls and it comes handy in areas with poor or no cellular coverage.
VoLTE uses 4G LTE networks instead of 2G or 3G networks to carry out calls, which allows for a higher-quality audio during calls and the user to do things like browse the web or send and receive messages while on a phone call.
Turning off Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE until you can implement patches for those vulnerabilities means experiencing poorer service or even being unable to make phone calls depending on where you are and whether available carriers have already stopped offering 2G and 3G services.
