February 12, 2025

Samsung’s Bad News—Galaxy S24, S23, S22 Warning – Forbes

New warning for millions of Galaxy owners.Republished on February 10th as Samsung issues a critical security update for Galaxy S24 owners, but one that will reinforce recent bad news.The situation for Samsung Galaxy owners awaiting updates is getting messy. As buyers of the new S25 start to get hands-on, those with older flagships are still playing a waiting/guessing game as to when they will see One UI 7 and Android 15. And that situation has just gotten worse, with a worrying new update.First to One UI 7. There is no formal update beyond last month’s promise that newer flagships (think S24 and S23) will be first out of the traps, and will be updated this quarter. Hopes had been on earlyish in February, maybe ahead of the usual monthly firmware release, negating the need to update phones twice in a month.One UI 7 and Android 15 are all about security and privacy, moving Galaxy devices forward materially. Google’s new OS narrows the gap to iPhone, and Samsung has gone even further, creating the nearest Android OS we’ve seen yet to Apple’s when it comes to safeguarding users. It’s an excellent upgrade.But tipster Ice Universe took to X on Friday to warn “the Galaxy S24 series One UI 7.0 will release the Beta4 version, and the official version is still a long way off.” The top reply to his update summed up the mood. “Damn, Quite a disappointment. Samsung has always been quick with updates but this time maybe even Motorola guys will be making fun of them. Jokes apart, If Samsung is delaying the update intentionally to just push the S25 series then this is bad.”As Phone Arena commented, “quite a lot of people believed that One UI 7 will start rolling out today to the Galaxy S24 series, given that today is the Galaxy S25 official store availability date,” adding that the latest tip “douses us with cold water, indicating Galaxy S24 owners will have to wait for quite a while to get the stable One UI 7.”SammyFans presented an even bleaker perspective, “Samsung also added that the update ‘is expected to gradually rollout to other Galaxy devices.’ The footnote suggests that the older flagships (S24, S23) might face a delay in receiving the long-awaited One UI 7 update. The company hasn’t yet concluded the One UI 7 Beta Program. And keeping the rollout schedule mystery indicates that the update could be delayed.”All that said, expectations remain that upgrades will begin this month, just later in the month than hoped. And for those S24 owners on the One UI 7 beta, there is clearly the Beta4 to play with until the stable release is ready.Per Android Police, “Samsung keeps a gap of at least a week or two between the last beta and stable release, even at the earliest, Galaxy S24 owners will likely get a taste of One UI 7 in the third week of February. That would be quite a bummer, as the company already took a long time to release the One UI 7 beta for the Galaxy S24 series.”While Android 15/One UI 7 is an excellent upgrade, there is now a more serious concern for Galaxy owners. Google issued Android’s February security update with a fix for a zero-day vulnerability being actively exploited in the wild. While that fix is already rolling out to Pixels, it remains missing from Samsung’s February bulletin. I have asked the company when it will be available and await an answer. It might be rolling out already, albeit has not made it into the documentation. Or it will be delayed by a month, as we have seen before. Either way, users will be keen to know more.There are other critical fixes in Samsung’s February release, so update anyway as soon as you can. But the zero-day was the most serious fix. While details are scarce, it’s a vulnerability when USB devices are plugged into a phone — the kind of exploit used by forensic data extractors favored by law enforcement and others. The fix is critical.But Android 15 will be the bigger concern. Per Android Police, “Samsung remains the only major Android manufacturer yet to update its 2024 flagship to Android 15, while other companies have already rolled out the update — even to their mid-range devices.”As feared, on Monday February 10th, Samsung owners started to receive the February security update before the One UI 7 upgrade, almost certainly ruling out an upgrade in very near further, likely pushing it back towards the end of the month at the earliest.As SammyFans reports, “Samsung has pushed a new update for Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphones, which installs the February 2025 security patch to enhance system security. The update is rolling out in Korea and the company will expand it to more devices soon. Users of the Galaxy S24 series are waiting for the stable One UI 7 update as Samsung already released it with the Galaxy S25 series in January 2025. But they start receiving One UI 6.1-based security patch.”The build numbers to look for are S921NKSS4AYA1 (Galaxy S24), S926NKSS4AYA1 (Galaxy S24 Plus) and S928NKSS4AYA1 (Galaxy S24 Ultra). The update remains critical, notwithstanding the forthcoming OS upgrade, and so update right away.SamMobile picks up on the bad news angle, with a security update coming when users are awaiting an upgrade. “Samsung has released a new software update for the Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra, and it’s going to anger a lot of fans because the update doesn’t bring One UI 7 (Android 15) to the year-old flagship lineup, only the latest security fixes. With the Galaxy S25 having gone on sale worldwide a couple of days back, we had hoped that older devices would start receiving One UI 7 by mid-February. However, that now seems unlikely as Samsung typically holds off on releasing security updates when it’s close to rolling out a major Android and One UI update.”A week on from the release of Google’s and Samsung’s February security updates, and the zero-day CVE-2024-53104 has not been added to the security bulletin — nor would it likely be. Samsung does say that some of its own fixes “included in the Samsung Android Security Update cannot be disclosed at this time,” which could also apply to the Android updates. We have seen Samsung update serious vulnerabilities alongside its usual cycle, which are then listed in a future bulletin. That could be the case here.Meanwhile, the best advice if you can’t wait for the safer, more secure One UI 7 update is a hardware upgrade. “The fastest way to access One UI 7.0 is to buy a Galaxy S25 series smartphone,” SamMobile says. “The Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and Galaxy S25 Ultra are the first (and only) phones (right now) to run the stable version of Android 15-based One UI 7.0.” We expect “the Galaxy S24 series will be the next in line to get the stable One UI 7.0 update. However, considering that Samsung has just released the February 2025 security patch to the Galaxy S24 series in South Korea, it likely won’t release the stable One UI 7.0 update this week.”One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service.  We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:So, how can you be a power user?Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site’s Terms of Service.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/02/10/samsungs-bad-news-warning-for-galaxy-s24-s23-s22-owners/

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