According to Verizon’s changelog, Brand Chat is a feature of its Advanced Messaging service, which is nothing but RCS (Rich Communication Services). This feature lets you “text your favorite companies’ chatbots from your messaging app”. All conversations with these chatbots are saved in the Messages app. You can access them at any time. The April update for the carrier-locked Galaxy S20 units in the US comes with firmware version G98*USQU2FVCC (via). Samsung recently confirmed that this month’s SMR (security maintenance release) fixes about 80 vulnerabilities. The majority of those fixes are from Google. But We have over 30 SVE (Samsung Vulnerabilities and Exposures) items as well. SVEs are security flaws that only affect Samsung’s custom Android software. i.e. One UI. Among the SVEs patched are three “critical” vulnerabilities that allowed remote code execution. Samsung also patched a couple of vulnerabilities in S Secure that allowed an attacker to locally bypass authentication and use the locked My Files app or access secured data.
Galaxy S20 series gets April security update in the US
Samsung began rolling out the April security update to its devices in the last week of March. The Galaxy S22 series was the first to get the new SMR. It was an important update for the new Galaxy flagships because it patches the Dirty Pipe vulnerability. This vulnerability only affected Samsung’s Galaxy S22 devices and select models from other brands, including the Google Pixel 6 series. However, it was a critical vulnerability that allowed an attacker to gain system-level access to your device remotely and take full control of it. Following the Galaxy S22, Samsung released the April SMR to the Galaxy S21 series. A few days later, the Galaxy S20 phones are receiving the new security update as well. Currently available on Verizon’s variant, this update should soon reach other carrier variants and unlocked units as well. As always, you will be able to download this update over the air (OTA) once you get a notification for it. You can also manually check for updates from your phone though. Simply open the Settings app, navigate to the Software update menu, and tap on Download and install. If there’s no update available check back again later.
