Samsung introduces Message Guard, a zero-click antivirus for messages

Samsung has launched a brand new Message Guard safety characteristic for its Galaxy vary of smartphones and tablets that may higher defend customers in opposition to “zero-click” cyberattacks disguised as picture attachments in messages. Zero-click assaults — which set up spyware and adware and different malicious code onto gadgets with none interplay from the proprietor — have grow to be more and more frequent over the previous few years. 

One of the notable examples of zero-click assaults was found by Citizen Lab in 2020, after a recognized iOS / iMessage zero-click safety flaw was exploited to put in NSO’s Pegasus spyware and adware onto the telephones of journalists, politicians, and activists between 2017 and 2020.

Zero-click assaults typically depart little hint and victims could also be fully unaware that their gadget has been compromised. In some circumstances, safety measures like end-to-end encrypted messaging meant to guard customers can truly make zero-click assaults even more durable to detect as the information being despatched can solely be seen by the sender and receiver.

Samsung claims its new Message Guard characteristic will help stop these assaults earlier than they happen, routinely quarantining and neutralizing potential threats hid inside PNG, JPG/JPEG, GIF, ICO, WEBP, BMP, and WBMP format picture information earlier than they will trigger any hurt. When a Galaxy gadget receives a textual content message with a picture attachment, Message Guard isolates the picture file from the remainder of your gadget to lock down any probably malicious code. The characteristic then scans the picture earlier than processing it to make sure it could’t infect the gadget.

Samsung Message Guard is accessible now on Galaxy S23 sequence telephones (that can be purchased from as we speak, February seventeenth) and can ultimately be rolled out to different Galaxy smartphones and tablets operating One UI 5.1 or larger in some unspecified time in the future later this 12 months. The Message Guard characteristic at the moment works on Samsung Messages and Messages by Google, and can ultimately be made accessible to undisclosed third-party messaging apps by way of a software program replace “at a later date.” Message Guard doesn’t must be activated by the person and runs “silently and largely invisibly within the background,” in line with Samsung.