Samsung has claimed that a notification sent randomly around the world wasn’t a data breach

Samsung has claimed that a notification sent randomly around the world wasn’t a data breach. Users received a “1/1” notification last week.

The Korean electronics company said last week’s message was “sent unintentionally during an internal test and there is no effect on your device”, but it’s since emerged that some users were able to see other’s data during the period.

IT news website The Register revealed readers sent the publication a “not-insignificant” amount of emails that said they could see other people’s data when they raced to the Samsung website to change their passwords, fearing the cryptic notification was a sign of cyberattack.

Samsung has now admitted there was a data breach but claim it only affected “a small number” of customers.

Given Samsung is the number one seller of smartphones globally, a “small number” of its users could still be a very sizeable amount.

A technical error resulted in a small number of users being able to access the details of another user, a Samsung spokesperson told The Register. As soon as we became of aware of the incident, we removed the ability to log in to the store on our website until the issue was fixed. We will be contacting those affected by the issue with further details.

The report also said some of the people who received the notification had the Find My Mobile app it appeared to originate from disabled on their device.

The app comes baked into Samsung’s version of Android and can’t be uninstalled but can be disabled.

But that doesn’t appear to have stopped the cryptic notification coming through.

The Register said Samsung didn’t answer when asked why a “disabled” app was still receiving notifications or what other capabilities it had.

The notification issue comes at a time when Samsung prepares to release its latest flagship Galaxy S20 smartphones next month.