Samsung’s ‘Find My Mobile’ Notification Glitch Was a Result of Security Breach: Report

Samsung has reportedly admitted that users could indeed access the personal data of random strangers.

By Nadeem Sarwar | Updated: 25 February 2020 14:34 IST

Samsung’s ‘Find My Mobile’ Notification Glitch Was a Result of Security Breach: Report

Samsung says a technical error caused users to see other people’s personal data

Highlights

Samsung has fixed the data privacy issue caused by the notification error
The company has not revealed the security breach’s scale
Samsung is mum on the type of user data that was accessible to others

Samsung smartphone users were recently taken by surprise, thanks to a weird Find My Mobile notification with just the number “1” appearing in the message. Reports of the error recounted by flummoxed users emerged from across the globe, but Samsung downplayed it by calling it an unintentional error caused during internal testing. It now appears that the seemingly harmless glitch might have been the outcome of a data breach. Samsung is reportedly investigating a security breach behind the notification glitch that resulted in some Samsung smartphone users getting access to other people's personal data.

The Register reports that multiple users were able to see the personal data of strangers on their Samsung smartphone owing to the notification mishap. Worried users quickly logged in to their profile for Samsung's Find My Mobile service to change their password, fearing a data breach that could compromise the security of their personal data. It seems that the affected users' suspicions were true, as Samsung has reportedly admitted that a data breach did occur.

Here's what a Samsung spokesperson was quoted as saying regarding the incident:

A technical error resulted in a small number of users being able to access the details of another user. As soon as we became of aware of the incident, we removed the ability to log in to the store on our website until the issue was fixed.

Samsung has promised to get in touch with users who were affected by the notification glitch and might have had their data leaked. Samsung has not revealed the extent of data breach or the specifics about the personal data of users that was accessible to random strangers. The company has also not divulged whether users in India were also affected by the issue, but going by tweets shared by Samsung smartphone users, we suspect that users in India might have also been in the danger zone.

We have reached out to Samsung for an official statement and details regarding the ‘Find My Mobile' notification row - which has now spiralled into the domain of data breach - and have asked their representatives if data of Samsung smartphone users in India was leaked. On its own end, Samsung fixed the issues after the reports emerged, and temporarily blocked log in access to the store on its website to minimise the impact.

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