Millions of Android devices could be at risk if "the death SMS" arrives

A serious vulnerability in Android allows malicious actors to crash devices with a single SMS. Discovered by security researcher Mark Blaszczyk, it affects devices running Android 12 or older. The system attempts to process the message in the background instead of displaying it, leading to issues like disrupted calls and loss of mobile connectivity. No user interaction is needed to exploit this flaw, making it particularly dangerous. Although Google was notified in May, they initially claimed it wasn't a security issue. A fix was included in the October security update for devices running Android 14 or newer, leaving older versions still vulnerable.