Owners of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge Plus in China will be happy to learn that the update containing the December 2017 Android security patch has now started rolling out to their devices. Specifically, the update applies to devices bearing the model number SM-G9280. It isn’t immediately clear what took the company so long with regard to its Chinese customers, as the update to the Samsung’s 2015 phablet flagship actually started in other regions around the globe several weeks ago.
Since the update in question is primarily intended to fix security holes in Android OS, component vulnerabilities, and Samsung-specific bugs or vulnerabilities, there most likely won’t be any noticeable user-facing changes following installation. Once the update is downloaded and installed, the firmware version number should be bumped up to G9280ZCU2CQL1 and the Android security patch level should be changed to read December 1, 2017. The patch contains several moderate and high-level vulnerability fixes, but nothing marked by as critical on the official December patch bulletin. More directly, the vulnerabilities themselves are mostly in the media framework, though there are fixes for some Kernel component issues and at least one moderate vulnerability found in Broadcom components that should be addressed by the update. Aside from those more general Android fixes, this update should reportedly also patch approximately ten Samsung-specific issues and vulnerabilities which haven’t been fully detailed.
As is always the case with updates, users shouldn’t be too surprised if this one hasn’t hit their device just yet. Firmware updates can take days or even weeks to roll out to every target device. For those users who are feeling a little less patient about waiting to get started, checking for the update manually is fairly straightforward. The option to check for downloads can be found by navigating to the “Software Updates” section of the Settings application. As is always the case with updates, users will likely want to back up their device first in case something goes wrong. It is also a good idea to ensure that the device to be updated is fully charged and that there is plenty of free space for the update to download.