The 2016 edition of the Samsung Galaxy A5, released in January of this year, received a patch in early November to fix a critical security issue.
Samsung did not disclose any specific details regarding the issue that the November update solved, perhaps to ward off attackers from looking for similar exploits. Unfortunately, it seems that there are more of such vulnerabilities in the Galaxy A5, as Samsung has released another security update for the smartphone.
Latest Security Patch For Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
The size of the new security patch for the Galaxy A5 is only 128 MB, which is much bigger than the nearly 21 MB patch that was rolled out last month. However, last month's security patch also included the monthly security update for Android, while the new one does not contain the December edition of the monthly update.
Still, with such a size, the new security patch unlikely contains anything else aside from the fix that will be applied to the critical security issue.
What Is The Security Patch Looking To Fix?
As with the first patch, Samsung does not reveal any specific details on the security issue that the update will fix. With the 2016 edition of the Galaxy A5 still running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the flaw could be anywhere within the operating system.
The mentioned security issue could be something that would compromise the safety of Galaxy A5 users and their personal information stored in the smartphone. However, it is also entirely possible that the patch will look to address an entirely different matter, such as blocking exploits that would allow users to root the Galaxy A5 or unlock the device's bootloader for the installation of custom firmware.
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) Appears On Geekbench
For owners of the 2016 edition of the Galaxy A5 who have fallen in love with the smartphone or for customers who are thinking of acquiring the device, it should be noted that the 2017 edition of the Galaxy A5 has appeared on Geekbench.
According to the benchmarking results, the 2017 model of the Galaxy A5 will improve the smartphone's RAM from 2 GB to 3 GB, and will also upgrade the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor to Samsung's proprietary octa-core Exynos 7880, which would be paired with a Mali-T830 GPU.
The 2017 model of the Galaxy A5, however, is expected to run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, though there is the possibility that it will come with Android 7.0 Nougat pre-installed or at least will be ready to upgrade its operating system shortly after it is launched next year.
