600 Million Samsung Galaxy Phones at Risk Due to Flaw

Ryan Welton, a researcher at Now Secure, has uncovered a flaw in SwiftKey that could cause a security breach in 600 million Samsung Galaxy phones. The flaw could allow a potential hacker to “execute the code as a privileged user,” leaving many individuals at risk in today’s modern world where pretty much everything is on a cell phone.

A hacker could gain access to photos, videos, addresses, numbers and in some cases bank information. Besides gaining access to your personal information, hackers have the potential to take control of your phones functions such as its GPS, microphone and application management. One of the biggest concerns in the flaw is that hackers may eavesdrop on calls and install malware.

Besides the obvious worrisome news, the biggest issue with the flaw is that the Swift Key Keyboard is pre-installed and therefore cannot be removed. Many people could already be at risk to a security breach and are unaware of it.

So far every phone from the Galaxy S3 to the recent Galaxy S6 is at risk. Although researchers at Now Secure have confirmed the issue at hand, Samsung has yet to comment on the security flaw.