Google: Turn off Wi-Fi calling, VoLTE to protect your Android from Samsung hijack bugs Google security analysts have warned Android device users that several zero-day vulnerabilities in some Samsung chipsets could allow an attacker to completely hijack and remote-control their handsets knowing just the phone number. Between late 2022 and early this year, Google's Project Zero found and reported 18 of these bugs …
Of the US nationwide carriers, only one even has a non-VoLTE voice capability left (T-Mobile) and that's straight GSM - and going away soon. A lot of modern phones don't even have a way to turn VoLTE off from the GUI.
Perhaps the mad rush to kill off GSM, UMTS/HSPA, and CDMA was actually a mistake?
"Perhaps the mad rush to kill off GSM, UMTS/HSPA, and CDMA was actually a mistake?"
The problem here isn't intrinsic to VoLTE, so I'm not sure it's fair to blame the shutoff for something that Samsung's code caused. It was going to be turned off at some point eventually, and people have been making VoLTE-capable modems unaffected by this exploit for quite a while. I'm not sure how long a deprecation should be extended for a a just in case backup option for a problem not caused by the new version.
Depends what your priorities are. Packet based stuff allows more efficient use of spectrum than connection-based stuff and data outstripped voice on mobile networks over a decade ago.
Also, this doesn't mean that other methods couldn't be, or haven't already been, hacked.
Unless you're often spending your time in the basement or a remote chalet, you should turn Wifi calling off anyway, unless you prefer dead air pickups, constant echo, warbling, and stutter, and total inability to receive verification calls and texts from most sites.
Sadly though, WiFi Calling is a poor substitute for a femtocell device. We used to have Sure Signal from Vodafone but they turned that off and we've had no end of trouble with WiFi Calling. There seems to have been no interest in a LTE femtocell to replace the 3G ones.
To be fair, they did basically start with some examples that, in their generic form, can be paraphrased as "unless you have no or bad signal". Since you have no signal, you would fall into that category of people with a good reason to use WiFi calling.
I had that situation at one point and enabled WiFi calling to deal with it, and I have to admit that I had several problems whenever it was operational. I'd answer a call and could hear nothing for the first five seconds. I seemed to have several seconds delay before an incoming call would make my phone ring, meaning I had less time to pick up before it went to voicemail. I had people reporting that my sound quality was worse even though I was using the same microphones on the same device and my WiFi was fast and low-latency enough to be able to handle it. This may have improved in the five years since I had to employ it, but I was glad to switch it off when I went somewhere that has signal.
I have no problems with wifi calling. It was a bit sketch the first few months that Apple supported it (though whether it was Apple or AT&T to blame who knows) but it is has been rock solid since, including through a recent switch from AT&T to Verizon.
I leave it on all the time regardless of how good/bad the cellular is where I happen to be. If you are having problems you should be blaming either your phone or your carrier. There is nothing wrong with wifi calling itself.
I knew there was a reason I didn't buy their stuff. Chipsets in my phones etc are Mediatek. Reliable, do the job, good battery life, not overpriced by 60%. I buy ulefone stuff, it just works for a sensible price, currently an Armor 8 and the next one will probably be an Armor 8 Pro. Surprised its taken so long to pick up this problem because WiFi calling has been kicking around for at least 4 years..
Although that issue with WiFi calling and notification auto SMS might explain a problem I've been having with the No Hope Service sending me notifications about appointments after the appointment actually happened.. (3G3N breast cancer/BCC, Fibromyalgia among others.)
I had a great Samsung phone (A5, I think) some time ago, lasted for years until I smashed it. Unfortunately that convinced me to buy Samsung for my next two phones: one stopped reliably taking/receiving calls about 2 years in; the other died completely the week before its first birthday.
I hadn't signed up for a phone protection plan, but seeing as that presumably would have gotten another of the same, I'm glad I didn't. Motorola makes some reasonably priced models.
And as others have said, I get great signal (5G) at my house, enough to replace my cable with, even... in one room on the top floor. So WiFi calling is a must-have. Apparently I dodged yet another bullet.
Samsung is scientifically proven to write crappy software, but a fight between Exynos and Mediatek is like two bald men fighting over a comb.
Mediatek. Never again. Drove me mad with Bluetooth signsl loss and reconnecting all the time. Replaced that phone with one with Qualcomm and have never had that issue since, this with the same headphones and speakers, and the car. No Apt-X for Mediatek. As for Samsung (I never realised that was how you pronounced it...), had one, hated all the Samsung apps, never again. Your mileage may vary, I hope so.
If you have a supported Pixel phone, they are supposed to give it to you when you ask. Settings | System | System update | Check for update. Now I did hear that the 6/6a updates were running late, so, as always, YMMV.
Good mornin', dear Sir. My name is Ed and I am from Samsung Network Operations & Security Team.
I am calling because we detected your mobile phone may have a virus. Before I continue, can I have your mobile phone number, please?
In many places it's VoLTE, VoNR, or nothing. Even if GSM was still around it wouldn't handle everyone trying to use it.
I do wish there were more consumer protections for cellphones You pay $300 to $1500 and hope the manufacturer keeps it running as advertised for at least two years. Most don't care what happens after the 14 day return window. They'll even lie that a fix is coming to make your return window expire.
I run a refurb iPhone 8 (2017) and my wife has the same. Before that i had an iPhone 6s for four years until I dropped it off a roof.
My daughter changes her Samsung phone every couple of years because there is always something going wrong with it after that time.
Some phones are better made and last longer than new shiny toys like Samsung.
There's plenty of news about Apple intentionally leaving in privacy and security violations too. I think Apple devices are rated highly because they're purchased as a generic appliance rather than a versatile compute and communication device. Nobody pays attention if Apple has bypassed VPN or is logging personal activities. It consistently satisfies limited expectations.
Apple is guilty of many, many things, but their long term support of iPhones is not one of them. The official, published window for my handset is 2018-2025. Past experience with Apple suggests that they mean it.
I think it’s safe to say that NONE of the players in the Android space are willing (or even able) to make that type of commitment.
I avoided buying an iPhone for years due to overpricing, in my opinion that is. Now I have one, and at times look for excuses to sell it and return to Android, but it seems all too often I see security issues like these and think, I’ll stay with my iPhone a little longer. I know Apple has security issues, but they patch things rapidly. Android means waiting on each individual manufacturer to act, and many act too slowly in comparison to Apple.
I know Apple has security issues, but they patch things rapidly.
While Apple might have fewer security issues than Android, they're patching speed is really poor. They just sit on the reports until after releasing the update. Where they do excel is getting people to install the latest versions, even if this means buying new versions of their apps.
"While Apple might have fewer security issues than Android, they're patching speed is really poor. They just sit on the reports until after releasing the update. Where they do excel is getting people to install the latest versions, even if this means buying new versions of their apps."
Or even if it means buying new hardware because your current device can't install/run the update.
Your attempt to put down Apple is showing your ignorance on the topic.
"Or even if it means buying new hardware because your current device can't install/run the update."
You're talking about Android, aren't you? Apple supports the latest operating system on most of their devices for about seven years. When an update is released, all those devices can install it on the first day. There is no delay. What if your device is too old to run it? They're also known to release security patches for the last supported operating system version as well. When the latest devices were running IOS 14 but some devices had been stuck on IOS 12, they released security patches for IOS 12. Those were also available at the same time. It's Android where there's doubt if a security patch will get to your hardware and how long it will take. By the time an iPhone doesn't get the feature updates anymore, security patches for an Android device released at the same time have stopped (unless you've installed a custom version that somehow manages to patch even though it was so hard for the manufacturers). That iPhone will get a few more years of security-only updates as well.
I'm happy to complain about it when Apple does something bad like this. In fact, I'll do it right now: they do cut off their Macs' security and operating system updates too early and for no good technical reason. Had you been talking about Macs, we could have agreed and had a fun time trashing their artificial obsolescence record. However, that record is bad because I'm comparing Macs to Windows and Linux computers. I have to compare iPhones to Android, and the iPhone's security update situation is better than the best Android devices out there and almost incomparably better than the average.
I work in Telco & hear that Samsung is advising that the most serious issues don't affect Samsung devices, only others that use the affected Exynos chips, like the Google Pixels.
While I don't have the time and skills to attempt exploiting the vulnerabilities to confirm, I'd suggest it's probably true as Samsung wouldn't want to lose trust by falsely saying this.
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