There have been some complaints recently on Samsung's official forums and Reddit that the native messaging app on some handsets, including newer models like the Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S9, is sending out photos stored on the device to random contacts over SMS. One user has even claimed that Samsung Messages sent all of the photos in their gallery to one contact late at night for no apparent reason.
As you can probably imagine, many are concerned about this issue as having your photos sent to a random contact puts your privacy at risk. The reports suggest that this bug in the Samsung Messages app doesn't leave any trace behind that it has automatically sent photos from the device to a random person. This means that some people who have been impacted by this bug won't really know what has happened until they're informed by the recipient.
Samsung Messages bug
There's a theory on Samsung's forums that this bug has something to do with the recent Rich Communication Services updates that carriers have been rolling out in the United States. RCS improves the legacy SMS protocol with additional features such as read reports, media sharing and more. Perhaps it's a bug in the implementation of RCS that's causing this to happen.
T-Mobile, one of the carriers that have implemented RCS, says “It's not a T-Mobile issue,” and is referring users back to Samsung. Samsung has acknowledged in a statement that “We are aware of the reports regarding this matter and our technical teams are looking into it. Concerned customers are encouraged to contact us directly at 1-800-SAMSUNG.”
This bug doesn't seem to be affecting users outside the United States so it's quite likely that it does have something to do with RCS but we won't know that for sure until Samsung gets back to us with more information after looking into the matter. Have you experienced something similar? Do let us know in the comments below.
