...security flaw leaves Galaxy devices open to the running of malicious code when the Swift Keyboard is installed. The flaw, according to the security researcher who discovered it, affects over 600 million devices, and that includes the brand new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge.
...To make matters worse, Samsung’s decision to build Swift into its own mobile software means that it cannot be uninstalled by users, making the security flaw even more worrying for those carrying around the wrong handset. Simply disabling the keyboard itself is not a solution either, as Welton points out that the flaw will still be in play no matter which keyboard a user actually has active at the time.
This is just shameful. And the scariest part to me is that the people most affected - Samsung buyers- are often the ones paying the least attention to this kind of thing. (If they really paid attention to their mobile devices, they wouldn’t have picked a Samsung, right?) But even for those that do pay attention, they’re stuck waiting on Samsung to provide a fix. And we all know how good Samsung is at software updates.
And that’s not to say that iOS is perfect, but the track record is far better.
Bottom line, if Samsung ever wants to really compete with Apple, they need to figure out that “good enough, me too” hardware isn’t the challenge. It’s the software, stupid. Spend less time on curved edges and more time getting the basics right and I might start taking you seriously.
Update:
So, Samsung has issued a release about the flaws and promised to push out a fix "over the coming days." However, it's limited to phones with KNOX security (Galaxy models, post 2013.) This also assumes you didn't root the device.
We shall see. I genuinely hope Samsung is able to get a patch out quickly to all users. And if the KNOX update works, then kudos to Samsung for adding a platform which made this update possible. If this had happened on other Android devices, users wouldn't be so lucky.
Update:
So, Samsung has issued a release about the flaws and promised to push out a fix "over the coming days." However, it's limited to phones with KNOX security (Galaxy models, post 2013.) This also assumes you didn't root the device.
We shall see. I genuinely hope Samsung is able to get a patch out quickly to all users. And if the KNOX update works, then kudos to Samsung for adding a platform which made this update possible. If this had happened on other Android devices, users wouldn't be so lucky.
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