14 DAY TRIAL // A bug in Samsung’s Messages app is causing at least two models of the company’s smartphones to silently send photos in the gallery to contacts without the owner to actually know about it.
Existing reports indicate that the behavior is different from case to case, with some saying that only a bunch of photos were sent to contacts, while others are claiming the entire gallery left their phone.
What’s even more uncanny is that the delivered messages do not appear in the sent folder, which makes it nearly impossible for the phone owner to learn about what happened. This malware-like behavior is said to be hitting models like Note 8 and Galaxy S9, but there’s a chance that other devices could be impacted as well.
Don’t install the latest Messages app version
By the looks of things, the bug was introduced in the most recent version of the Messages app, which can be updated from the Samsung Galaxy Store. Those who haven’t installed the latest build are obviously recommended to avoid doing it until Samsung comes up with a fix.
A report from Android Police and citing some of the users whose phones started sending out photos randomly to contacts indicates that the problem isn’t limited to just certain carriers.
With an official fix from Samsung, the best way to block the Messages app from sending photos to contacts is to configure storage permissions. Head over to Settings > Apps > Messages > Permissions > Storage and set the toggle to off in order to block Messages from reading photos in your gallery.
The only way to tell whether your phone has experienced the same behavior without actually asking all your contacts about it is to check carrier logs to look for any unknown sent messages. If this happened to you as well, turning to the workaround above is a way to prevent it taking place again until a fix is provided.