The December SMR for the carrier-locked Galaxy S21 FE in the US comes with firmware version G990USQS4DVL1 (via). The package doesn’t contain anything apart from the latest vulnerability fixes. That isn’t surprising since Samsung recently rolled out Android 13 to the phone. The new Android version has yet to be available for the unlocked units, though. The latest security patch should be part of the big Android update for those. Users with a carrier-locked unit, meanwhile, are getting a host of vulnerability fixes with this release. According to Samsung’s official tracker, the December SMR contains as many as 67 ASB (Android Security Bulletin) patches. These are issues on the Android OS and other partner components, including those from Qualcomm, MediaTek, and more. All Android products using these compromised components are vulnerable. Google’s release mentions at least five critical ASB patches, some of which allowed a bad actor to remotely take control of an affected device without the victim’s knowledge.
The December update contains more vulnerability patches for Galaxy devices
Google also mentions 60 high-severity and a few moderated ASB patches for December. Along with those, Samsung patcher 13 Galaxy-specific vulnerabilities as well. These issues affect Samsung’s components and don’t exist on products from other brands. In total, the December SMR for Galaxy smartphones and tablets patches 80 vulnerabilities. Of course, not all 80 issues exist on every device. But the majority do, including the Galaxy S21 FE. The latest update will keep the phone safe from all of those vulnerabilities. If you’re using this affordable Galaxy flagship, you might want to install the new update as soon as possible. As usual, you will be able to download the latest release over the air (OTA) when available. Watch out for a notification about it. You can also head over to the Settings app on your Galaxy S21 FE, and navigate to Software update > Download and install to manually check for updates. As said earlier, the release is currently limited to carrier-locked units in the US. But it should just be a matter of time before Samsung covers the phone with the December SMR globally. Make sure to keep an eye on the aforementioned notification.
