Samsung’s Find My Mobile service is safe - says Samsung

Samsung’s Find My Mobile service, used for tracking and locking misplaced smartphones, had reportedly been having a few problems with hackers. Although Samsung insists that no user data has been put at risk, neither before nor after an update to address the problem.

The issue was fixed last month, but Samsung has today taken the time to address the situation in a little more detail.

According to Samsung, any hacking of its service would require a very specific set of circumstances to occur. In this scenario a hacker would only be able to make the device ring out and wouldn’t be able to do anything else or access any data stored on the phone. Here’s how the exploit worked:

1. The attacker occupies a way to send a link containing malicious code
2. The Find My Mobile user sets up Find My Mobile Remote control ‘ON’ at his/her device
3. The user enters up his/her ID and password and logs on Find My Mobile website
4. The user clicks the link in email/instant message/SMS sent by attackers

That does seem like a rather specific set of circumstances and one that is unlikely to have affected many people. Even so, the threat of someone hacking into a service that can track and disable your phone is certainly cause for concern.

Fortunately, the exploit has been patched anyway, so Find My Mobile users don’t have to worry.