- Many Samsung Galaxy phone owners received a notification on Thursday from the company’s “Find My Mobile” service that only included the number “1.”
- Samsung’s support Twitter account said the notification was sent by accident as the result of an internal test, and that the alert wouldn’t have any impact on the phones that received it.
- But that didn’t stop Galaxy device owners from expressing confusion on Twitter, with some worrying that their phone had been hacked.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Samsung Galaxy device owners received a puzzling notification on Thursday morning that included one simple piece of text: “1”
The notification came from Samsung’s “Find My Mobile” service, which helps users locate their phone remotely. Dozens of Galaxy device owners expressed confusion over the notification on Twitter. It’s unclear precisely which devices received the alert, but it appears to have been pushed to Galaxy devices. I received the notification on a Galaxy S10e, while other tech journalists reported seeing it on the Galaxy S8+ and recently launched Galaxy Z Flip.
Samsung did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s questions about why the notification was sent or how many devices received the message. But in a response to a customer question on Twitter, Samsung’s UK support account tweeted that the alert was sent unintentionally as the result of an internal test. The company also said that the notification was only sent to a limited number of Galaxy devices and that there is no effect on the phone’s that received it.
—Samsung Help UK (@SamsungHelpUK) February 20, 2020
Some Galaxy device owners worried that their phone had been hacked after receiving the prompt.
—softwaregore (@softwaregorebot) February 20, 2020
—Ash (@AshHart24) February 20, 2020
—Darryl Spivey (@d_spi) February 20, 2020
—??️ Carrie Zylka ?️? (@CarrieZylka) February 20, 2020
—Kaustubh (KL) Labhe (@originalKL) February 20, 2020
It’s not the first time smartphone owners received a notification in error as the result of an internal test. Back in November, many people reported that friends and family members had received text messages from them that they had never sent. Some of these messages were originally sent on Valentine’s Day, but only made it to the recipient in November. That bug was the result of a maintenance update that occured overnight that impacted the messaging platforms used by multiple carriers.