Some Samsung Exynos phone chips have a worrying security flaw

Some Samsung smartphones were reportedly carrying a high severity vulnerability in their processors, allowing threat actors to escalate privileges and possibly drop malware on the devices.

Cybersecurity researchers from Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) found the flaw and reported it to Samsung, which addressed the vulnerability on October 7, with a patch and a follow-up security advisory.

In the advisory, the flaw was described as an use-after-free vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-44068, with a severity score of 8.1 (high-severity), found in Samsung Exynos mobile processors versions 9820, 9825, 980, 990, 850, and W920.

Vulnerability chain

Samsung phones that are powered by these chips include parts of the S10 series, Note 10 and 10+, the S20 series, as well as Samsung Galaxy A51 5G and Samsung Galaxy A71 5G. The Exynos W920 is primarily used in wearable devices like Samsung's Galaxy Watch series.

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