Samsung’s August 2024 security update is now widely available for several Galaxy devices, including the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S23, and foldables launched in 2023 and earlier. It is also rolling out to a bunch of mid-range models across the Galaxy A, M, and F family. The update addresses dozens of vulnerabilities — 50 of them — of varying severity. These include a high-severity GPU bug affecting the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy A55 phones.
Update your Galaxy S24 and A55 phones to patch this GPU vulnerability
Samsung has already detailed the content of the August SMR (Security Maintenance Release) for Galaxy devices. This month’s security update patches 50 vulnerabilities across various Android OS and Galaxy components. Two of those are confirmed to be critical bugs, while the vast majority of the remaining issues are labeled high-severity bugs by Samsung and Google in their respective security bulletins for August 2024.
Digging deeper, we noticed that one of the high-severity bugs patched this month concerns Samsung’s Xclipse-branded custom CPUs co-developed with AMD. The AMP GPU driver has a reference count bug potentially leading to a UAF(Use after free), which can pave the way for exploitation of software and system compromise. Samsung learned about this bug in February and finally patched it with the August security update.
The vulnerability affected the company’s Exynos 2400 and Exynos 1480 chipsets. The former powers the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ in Europe and most other global markets (excluding the US, China, and select other regions). The latter is at the heart of the Galaxy A55, a premium mid-range phone that Samsung launched in March and decided not to release in the US. It is sold in most parts of the world, though.
As of this writing, the August SMR isn’t available for the Galaxy A55. The Galaxy S24 duo, meanwhile, has picked up the update globally. Hopefully, Samsung won’t delay the release of the new SMR for the A series phone much longer. You can check for updates from Settings > Software update > Download and install. You should always keep your phone updated to stay protected from the latest vulnerabilities and security flaws.
Sumit is passionate about technology and has been professionally writing on tech since 2017. He’s a mathematics graduate by education and enjoys teaching basic mathematics tricks to school kids in his spare time. Sumit believes in artificial intelligence and dreams of a fully open, intelligent and connected world.
