A dangerous security exploit which could potentially grant apps access to all of a phone's physical memory has been detected by XDNA Developers user alephzain, according to CNET. The affected phones include the Galaxy S2, S3, Note 2, MEIZU MX, and other Exynos processor powered devices.
Alephzain notes that "Ram dump, kernel code injection and others could be possible via app installation from Play Store. It certainly exists many ways to do that but Samsung give an easy way to exploit. This security hole is dangerous and expose phone to malicious apps. Exploitation with native C and JNI could be easily feasible."
While Samsung has not released an official patch for the vulnerability, and independent programmer has crafted a workaround. The author, however, warns that the fix may "break proper function of the Front camera on some phones and alter MHL/HDMI output functions, among other disclosures.
Latinos Post reached out to Samsung for comment, but the company has not responded as of this publication.
The Galaxy S3, Samsung's flagship smartphone, sold 18 million units in 2012's third quarter. The handset's innards include a QUALCOMM dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, a 4.8-inch HD SUPER AMOLED display, Bluetooth, WI-FI, NFC, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera.
With a two-year contract, the 16GB can be purchased on Amazon for $79.99, while the 32GB is priced at $199.99.