If you own a Samsung phone, do not put this off — there’s a crucial security fix rolling out now that you should install the moment it arrives. The update patches a major bug that could allow an attacker to insert malicious code onto your device, potentially as easily as via viewing an image from within a messaging app.
What Samsung Just Fixed
Most recent of Samsung’s Security Maintenance Release contains a fix for CVE-2025-21043, an out-of-bound write vulnerability in a libimagecodec component. quram. so. Put plain and simple, it’s a memory fencing bug within an image decoding library. Malicious images crafted and sent to your phone could have set the flaw off while being decoded, allowing remote code execution — one of the most dangerous kinds of security issues because it can be used to install spyware or other malicious software without you knowing it.
The security team that operates on behalf of WhatsApp discovered the weakness and collaborated with industry partners to disclose the vulnerability, he said. The company said its own independent investigation into the vulnerability surfaced and noticed that platform vendors had also received warnings of the flaw. Apple fixed the same underlying problem on its devices with an iOS and iPadOS update; Samsung’s patch then moves Galaxy owners to equality in terms of protection.
Who Needs to Update
Samsung says the solution is applicable to Galaxy phones operating on Android 13 or later, which includes a broad array of recent devices spanning from the Galaxy S series and Z foldables to many A-series handsets. Rollouts tend to happen in stages, by region, model and carrier — so you may not see it right now, but don’t ignore that notification when it lands.
Though it was WhatsApp’s research that brought the vulnerability to light, Samsung’s own bulletin indicates the flaw is in a system image codec used by messaging apps—so it stands to reason multiple services could potentially be abuse paths.
Which is precisely why a platform-level patch is important: it quashes the bug across all apps at once.
How to Install and Test the Patch
Open Settings, and then tap Software update followed by Download and install. If there’s an update, you’ll be prompted to download and install it instead. Just be sure your battery is at least 50% and connect to Wi-Fi unless you have unlimited data, of course. After successful installation, just check your device on settings whether it is updated to latest Android security patch level and Samsung software version. You can also see if Samsung’s Mobile Security bulletin lists this particular CVE identifier to make sure you’re covered.
If you don’t already have it, go get the update; if you can’t get it yet, be sure to check later today and over the next few days – carrier-locked models often lag behind unlocked ones.
In the meantime, keep your messaging apps updated from the Play Store, switch on Google Play Protect and be wary of unexpected image attachments, even if you think they’re coming from familiar faces.
Why This Patch Should Be Urgent
Media parsers — software that enables photos, videos and audio to be played back — are a common target because they handle untrusted content from the open internet and messaging threads. Google’s Project Zero security researchers have singled these components out as valuable attack areas multiple times. History supports that claim: highly-publicised iMessage image-parsing exploits have been used to remotely deliver ominous spyware without any user interaction. When a vendor issues the fix for an image codec that can allow remote code execution, such updating is not up to debate — it’s table stakes when it comes to device safety.
Samsung’s monthly security updates normally bring us dozens of fixes from both Google’s Android team and Samsung’s own engineering teams. The high, in combination with the 3rd party codec vuln w/ RCE potential. Both the National Vulnerability Database and vendor bulletins rate such bugs high to critical given they can be used by an attacker to secretly compromise a system.
What If You’re on Other Devices
If you also own an iPhone or iPad, though, grab Apple’s most recent update for those machines, which covers the same underlying issue on those platforms. Bugs which cross ecosystems aren’t rare to begin with — shared libraries and industry-standard components can show up in products from multiple companies. The quickest route to safety is always through an operating system-level update.
Bottom Line
This is a high-severity fix for a vulnerability in one of our core image-decoding libraries. So, go update your Samsung phone, confirm the new available security patch level that includes the vulnerability fix, and keep all of your apps updated in addition to maintaining a healthy level of skepticism toward unsolicited media until it’s applied. The few minutes it takes to update today may save you a far uglier experience tomorrow.