Last week, we heard about this pretty scary bug, which is called StageFright. Basically it uses text messaging to send a piece of malware to your device. Using MMS, a hacker could easily gain access to your photos and Bluetooth. The report last week stated that about 950 million Android smartphones are affected by this. And we’ve begun seeing OEM’s rolling out fixes for StageFright already. The Galaxy Note 4 on Sprint got it earlier this week, along with Android 5.1.1, now the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S5, and Galaxy Note Edge on Sprint are rolling out the update as well.
Google seems to be rolling out the update to the Nexus 5, and Nexus 6 later today to patch StageFright. At least according to Sprint’s support site. Which is nice to see. Now it’s also important to remember that Sprint isn’t always correct when it comes to Nexus updates, but barring any actual issues we should see the update begin to roll out today as build LMY48I. It appears that the only fix in this update is for StageFright. So don’t expect any other bugs to be fixed today with this update.
Currently, Google has not uploaded the factory images, or started rolling out the updates. As soon as the factory images are available, we’ll be sure to post them. As we grab the OTA URL’s we’ll also grab those so that you can sideload the update instead of waiting for Google to push it to your device, or having to flash the entire factory image – as that does erase all of your data, and obviously takes a bit more time.
Hopefully we’ll see more and more OEM’s begin to roll out this StageFright update very soon. It appears that Sprint is on the ball in regards to patching StageFright. Which is really nice to see. I’d expect T-Mobile to be not far behind. Who knows when Verizon and AT&T approve the updates for StageFright for all of their devices. As others get the update to patch StageFright, we’ll be sure to post those as well, to keep everyone up to date.