Samsung Updates Millions Of Galaxy Phones To Stop Attacks

Forbes

25-03-2025

Is this the fix we're waiting for?
Your phone is now at risk from Chinese attacks sweeping across America from 'state to state.' These threats come by way of malicious texts crafted to steal your money and even your identity. But if you're a Galaxy owner, maybe Samsung has the fix.
The Galaxy-maker has been working on a solution for malicious texts with Korean communication and security agencies since last year. Now it is hitting users' devices. Per local reports, the Korea Communications Commission has confirmed 'it has developed an 'AI based malicious message blocking feature' in collaboration with the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and Samsung.'
This will come with Android 15 and One UI 7, and unsurprisingly the new Galaxy S25 will get it first. It will then be available to other flagships once they're upgraded. This arrives in Korea as American media warns SMS scams are 'out of control across the U.S., and Apple, Android can't do anything to stop it.' It needs a wider deployment.
This new security update 'is an AI-based technology that automatically blocks messages containing suspicious content on smartphones. It categorizes and blocks illegal spam messages that include sender numbers deemed to be malicious and risky links (URLs).'
If that works as billed, then Samsungs may be first to kill the road toll, undelivered packages and other smashing attacks now 'spiraling out of control' in America. Attackers rotate numbers to beat blocks. But these are driven by phishing kits and include malicious links from clearly dubious URLs and telltale wording. This should be child's play for sophisticated on-device AI to eradicate once and for all.
Clearly this will need to be adapted for regional variations, but this is AI and should be able to adapt to widen its aperture as it rolls out more widely. Between this and Google's new anti scam defenses that are coming first to Pixels, users will be better protected.
The recent federal, state and local law enforcement warnings for Americans to delete these texts which seem to easily bypass current defenses has raised the profile of so-called smishing. The pressure is now on phone maker as to deploy solutions.
When it goes live in Korea, 'users can selectively unblock or check blocked malicious messages, messages blocked by AI, and messages they have blocked in case they need to receive automatically blocked messages.' We await news on any wider rollout.