Report: Samsung pushes fix for Exynos 4 flaw to Galaxy SIII

Samsung has pushed an OTA (Over-the-air) update which fixes the security flaw that gave any application full access to the memory of its Exynos-4-based devices, according to a report on the SamMobile blog. The flaw allowed applications to access any memory location, gain root access, or inject malicious software.

But that fix is apparently only available in the UK and only available for the Galaxy SIII. The flaw itself is believed to affect the international versions of the Samsung Galaxy SII, SIII, Note and Note II, Galaxy Tab 7.7, and the Galaxy Note 10.1, although it appears that a fix has not yet been pushed out for the other devices. The fix is labelled as "I9300XXELLA" and has a build date of 22 December 2012. According to SamMobile, the fix also includes an updated bootloader that addresses a "sudden death" issue on the Galaxy SIII which has seen a number of Samsung phones permanently stop working for no apparent reason; however, there is no official confirmation that there is a patch for this problem.

The OTA patch was expected to be released globally soon after its appearance, but as it has yet to be spotted outside the UK. Samsung has not made any statements about the update, and the future availability of the patch is unclear.

(djwm)