Samsung explains mystery alert sent overnight

  • Published
Samsung logo

Samsung has apologised after it accidentally sent an alert to thousands of devices overnight.

Affected devices received a notification from Find My Mobile in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Some customers complained on social media that it had woken them up, while others worried their device had been hacked.

In a statement, Samsung said the alert had been sent unintentionally to a "limited number" of devices.

Thousands of customers posted on social media and news site Reddit, many sharing screenshots of the notification and asking what it might mean.

This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on Twitter
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip twitter post by Rena

Allow Twitter content?

This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of twitter post by Rena

It affected Galaxy devices running on Android O or newer - including Samsung's latest Galaxy S phones, its new Z-Flip device and some Samsung tablet computers.

The alert did not contain any meaningful text and did nothing when it was tapped.

Image caption,
The notification was received by customers worldwide

Samsung said the message was the result of an internal test and that it had not done any harm to the phones that received it.

This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on Twitter
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip twitter post by Samsung UK

Allow Twitter content?

This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of twitter post by Samsung UK