While January was a huge month for Samsung, February could be even bigger. The launch of the AI flagship Galaxy S25 was a major milestone, but the device landing in users’ hands and the Android 15 / One UI 7 upgrade it brings with it will determine how well everyone is feeling come the end of this month. Samsung can’t get this wrong.
While Google was very much Samsung’s partner on the S25 development and launch, with Gemini now as prominent as Galaxy AI on the phone, it has not done its partner any favors as February gets underway. This month’s Android security update includes a zero-day under active exploitation, and nothing highlights Samsung’s update issues like emergency fixes that need to reach its user base urgently.
Google warns Android users that CVE-2024-53104 “may be under limited, targeted exploitation.” This vulnerability affects Android’s core Linux kernel, mishandling video frames, potentially triggering memory instability. It is now being exploited in targeted attacks, but history suggests that may expand as users await the fix.
Samsung has played it both ways with such vulnerabilities before, sometimes releasing them immediately and other times waiting for the following month. I am fairly sure this will be included in February’s release. But there’s another critical security fix in Android’s update, and this one will likely be a different story.
CVE-2024-45569 is a Qualcomm fix and so only applies to devices with its relevant chipsets. Samsung tends to include such third-party component fixes a month later than Google, and so this one will likely run to March. Fortunately, there are no suggestions this has come under attack, unlike the Qualcomm fixes last year.
The bad news for new Galaxy S25 buyers is that the current firmware update only includes December’s security update. It’s likely that will be remedied quickly — but that hasn’t happened yet. And it will highlight the patchy update process that continues to frustrate users. The S25 should see Pixel-like seamless updates, a first for a Samsung flagship, but that won’t in itself speed up the process.
Meanwhile, the bad news for Galaxy S24 owners remains the wait for One UI 7’s stable release, bringing Android 15 to the Samsung masses. This is an excellent upgrade and makes Samsung phones materially safer and more secure. It can’t come soon enough.
Officially, this should come out by the end of the first quarter for relatively new flagships. The S25 gets it right out of the box. But the feeling now seems to be that S24 owners might see the February security update before they see One UI 7, which is good from a fix perspective but frustrating from a feature perspective. There is no new news, though, just lots of speculation and users keen to see the new firmware released.
As SammyFans reports, “recently, our senior writer contacted Samsung Support U.S. to inquire about the status of the stable One UI 7 update. When asked about a tentative release timeline, the support executive stated that they did not have a specific date for the update. Something seems off, raising the possibility of another slight delay in the distribution. The support representative also noted, ‘we can’t speculate on this’ — likely a move to prevent fans from creating hype, as has happened many times in the past.”
Whatever phone you’re using, make sure you update as soon as you can. A Google warning of this sort must be taken seriously. You can check to ensure you’re on Samsung’s monthly update schedule here. And the release will be announced here.
