Millions of Samsung Galaxy owners were caught by surprise this morning when they saw a random notification from Samsung's Find My Mobile service. It made no sense and really weirded some people out, given the fact that Find My Mobile can be used to remotely lock and even wipe phones.
It was immediately evident that this notification was caused by a fluke instead of the service itself being compromised, which would have been a catastrophic event considering how many Samsung phones are being used worldwide. Samsung has now explained exactly what caused this notification to be sent out.
Just an internal test, nothing to worry about
The strange notification from Find My Mobile only displayed the number “1” a couple of times. It did nothing when the notification was tapped, further adding to the mystery. It surely spooked a lot of people.
Samsung's explanation first appeared on its Korean forums and the same is now being given by all of its online support channels. According to the company, the notification was sent out “unintentionally during an internal test and there is no effect on your device.” The company also says that the notification was only sent to a “limited number of Galaxy devices.”
It wasn't really as limited as it says, though. Our entire team spread across different countries received this notification and judging by what we have been seeing on our socials, so did a lot of other people across dozens of countries. Nevertheless, Samsung says that “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers.”
At least Samsung didn't make us wait for long before explaining what exactly happened. The company says that it will do its best to prevent something like this from happening again. It should, this isn't something that befits a company of Samsung's stature.