Samsung released details of the May 2019 security update for its devices yesterday and has now started rolling out the update for the Galaxy Note 8 and the Galaxy A9 (2018). The Note 8 is getting the update in Morocco while the A9 (2018) is getting it in India, with software versions N950FXXU6DSD5 and A920FXXU1BSDA for the two devices respectively.
The May security patch fixes seven critical vulnerabilities that were discovered in Android, with the most severe one allowing a “remote attacker using a specially crafted file to execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process.” The patch also fixes 21 vulnerabilities that only affect Samsung's software, one of which could leak clipboard contents and some learned words from the Samsung Keyboard app to the lockscreen through Bixby. No cases of these vulnerabilities being exploited have been reported yet.
To grab the new update over the air on your Note 8 or A9 (2018), open the phone's Settings app, select Software update, then tap Download and install. We're not sure there are any notable changes included in these updates in addition to the latest security patch, but you can help us out by checking out the changelog once the update shows up on your device. If you can't access the update over the air, you can download the full firmware from our database and upgrade using a Windows PC.
