A Samsung Messaging Bug Might Be Texting Random Contacts Your Private Photos

If you've been meaning to purge your phone of embarrassing or private photos, do it sooner rather than later. According to Gizmodo, some Samsung users have reported a bug that sends their images to random people in their contacts without their permission.

Complaints began popping up on web forums in the past week. The apparent bug isn't always texting out one or two photos from the user's stream: In some cases, it's exporting their entire gallery. Others have reported their phones sending scheduled text messages too early.

The glitch leaves no trace of shared data in the phone's messaging app. Unless the texts or photos end up with someone who's kind enough to reach out, there's no way of knowing it happened unless you check the log files for your device's account. This problem has been reported on Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Note 8 phones.

Many of the incidents seem to be affecting phones with T-Mobile, a carrier that recently rolled out updates with their RCS "advanced messaging" service. Multiple Samsung bugs have been reported since the change, mainly connected to the Samsung Messaging app.

Samsung tells Gizmodo they are aware of the reports and are looking into them, but has yet to come out with an official statement warning users of the bug.

Until the company comes up with a fix, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself, as TechCrunch points out. Head to the app settings in your Galaxy phone and make sure Samsung Messages can no longer access your storage. This means you won't be able to send any stored data, like photos or saved messages, through text. In the meantime, you can switch to a third-party messaging app like WhatsApp, Signal, or Facebook Messenger to send all the photos you want to the right people.

[h/t Gizmodo]