[raino]

...because I feel like I've heard of "smishing" before:

Google: Android has security flaw - The Times of India

[Rickroller]

What a terrible article. It doesn't mention how the "smishing" works, only that you can recieve fraudulent texts? Who cares if I receive a text message? Does it contain a link, and that is how the scam works? There is really no explanation in the article as to what to be concerned about..

EDIT: My rant isn't directed at you raino, just the article itself lol..

[raino]

Isn't most "smishing" done via URLs in the text messages? But you're right...the article is rather vague. The only concrete piece of information I got was that whatever the issue is, it's been fixed in 4.2. But let's assume it is tradtional "smishing" that was the issue, i.e. someone sends you a link via SMS, you click and give away your information. How can this be fixed by an OS update? Not allowing you to open text message URLs at all?

TOI isn't exactly at the peaks of journalism (coming from a regular reader, this)

[DenverRalphy]

Smishing is a user vulnerability. Any platform that can receive SMS messages (read: all of them), is prone to it. Smishing doesn't swipe phone data, it requires the recipient to be stupid enough to enter personal information after clicking a link or following the directions outlined in the SMS message.

I'm relatively confident that this is just a scare piece.

How can this be fixed by an OS update?

I imagine it's simply removing the ability for apps to provide you with fake SMS messages. If so, I would hope it would be an option to turn on/off. I occasionally use fake SMS messages to get out of meetings/bad dates/etc..