What you need to know
- Samsung has started rolling out its stable January 2026 security update for users with devices outside of its One UI 8.5 beta.
- The patch holds a substantial number of fixes for these devices, as Samsung looks to correct security flaws for its file system and more.
- The company previously brought a January patch for its One UI 8.5 Beta 3 users at the top of the month.
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you; this is, technically, the second January patch for the Galaxy S25, but this one’s for everyone else.
Spotted earlier today (Jan 13) by SamMobile, Samsung has started rolling out its first security patch of 2026 to the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, S25 Ultra, and S25 FE. The patch, as detailed on Samsung’s Security Updates page, contains 21 fixes for these devices. Among these, 19 are marked as “High” priority fixes, while two settle for the “Critical” tag.
Samsung states it’s rolling out a fix for CVE-2026-20969, which concerns an issue where attackers could inappropriately “access file with system privileges.” Other fixes were included to fix vulnerabilities with attackers accessing out-of-bounds memory, a bypass for Carrier Relock, and more.
In actuality, as SamMobile notes, the entire patch holds roughly 55 fixes for Samsung’s latest flagship models. As always, Google’s side holds a bit more, as per its Android Security Bulletin. Google detailed one critical fix en route for devices with Dolby components.
The post highlights that the January patch bears vBYLR. Users should know that the patch is slowly making its rounds in South Korea. It’s not out of the norm, but users should likely prepare to see the patch hit the U.S., Europe, and other areas late this week, if not the week after.
Prepare for more updates
As previously stated, this is the second January patch that Samsung has rolled out for the Galaxy S25 series; however, the first was for One UI 8.5 Beta testers. A few days after New Year’s, Samsung pushed a patch to its beta testers for its 8.5 Beta 3. The update was a massive 1.2GB download for users, further strengthening its enormous number of fixes for bugs. Among them, Samsung aimed to fix lock screen glitches, gallery lag, widget bugs, and much more.
The One UI 8.5 beta started a little later than previously expected, likely due to issues Samsung had with its S26 series. The company was reportedly busy trying to narrow down the devices it wanted to offer consumers in 2026, which seems to be the S26, S26 Plus, and an S26 Ultra, per usual.
As you’d expect, this updated software is positioned as a much grander update, nothing like a smaller 8.1 update. Rumors suggest that this update will arrive alongside the Galaxy S26 series before rolling out to other models, like the S25.
