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 in Samsung's Exynos cellular modem firmware, according to Tim Willis, who heads the bug-hunting team. Four of the 18 zero-day flaws can allow internet-to-baseband remote code execution. The baseband, or modem, portion of a device typically has privileged low-level access to all the hardware, and so exploiting bugs within its code can give an intruder full control over the phone or device. Technical details of these holes have been withheld for now to protect users of vulnerable gear.

"Tests conducted by Project Zero confirm that those four vulnerabilities allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband ...