Cybercriminals Can Access Your Phone’s Data Through Image Attachments

Cybercriminals have become increasingly crafty over the past several years. As phone manufacturers like Samsung have begun to up their game to safeguard user data, hackers have reciprocated. They no longer have to wait for you to click on a dubious link to access your device/data, because they now have what’s called the zero-click exploit.

These are attacks that can take place at any time by sending an image to your smartphone. You don’t even have to open or interact with said file. It could be sent at any time, while you’re away from your phone or using it for something else. Once it’s sent, cybercriminals can access your messages and various other private details kept on your device.

One in three consumers around the world have fallen victim to a data breach where their personal data was stolen. These occurrences have become more frequent with rates more than tripling between 2013 and 2021.

This is why Samsung says it continues to tirelessly build better and more effective safeguards around user data to ensure better protection. We are already aware of the Knox platform, which is a combination of hardware and software systems meant to make it extremely difficult for cybercriminals to access your private information.

Now, there’s also Samsung Message Guard. It preemptively protects your smartphone, limiting exposure to threats disguised as image attachments. It’s an advanced “sandbox” or virtual quarantine. When an image file arrives on your Galaxy phone, it is kept isolated from the rest of the device. This prevents malicious code from accessing your files or messing with the OS.

Samsung Message Guard then checks the file bit by bit, processing it in a controlled environment to ensure it cannot infect the rest of the device. The system automatically neutralizes potential threads in images without needing any user intervention. In fact, it runs quietly in the background, constantly on the lookout for malicious attacks.

Currently, it works on Samsung Messages and Messages by Google, which is in line with the company’s philosophy of open collaboration. A software update will roll out at a later date to let Samsung Message Guard protect users across third party messaging apps as well.

We’ve covered the Samsung Knox platform in a previous article, if you’d like to know more about it click here. Samsung Message Guard is available now on the Smasung Galaxy S23 series phones but will be gradually rolled out to other Galaxy smartphones and tablets later this year.