- A mysterious company called Numero LLC is taking control of some Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra units after a factory reset
- This gives them full control of the phone, and appears to prevent users from finishing the setup process
- It’s not clear how this happened, and Samsung reportedly isn’t doing much to help affected users
Bugs and hacking attempts are common hazards of smartphone ownership, but a rather more unusual peril is currently befalling some Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra units.
Android Authority has found several reports of Galaxy S22 Ultra users losing access to their phone after a factory reset, with a message appearing that says “this Galaxy S22 Ultra isn’t private”, and then detailing that it’s instead managed by an unknown organization called Numero LLC.
Not only is that company name unfamiliar, but these are also all supposedly personal handsets that weren’t supplied through any organization.
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Being managed by Numero LLC means this mysterious firm can monitor and control settings and data on the phone, so that’s a major security concern, but it sounds like most of the affected users were unable to proceed with setup after this screen appeared anyway, leaving their phones essentially bricked.
A strange situation
It’s not entirely clear what’s happening here — Samsung offers a tool called Knox Mobile Enrollment, which lets businesses automatically configure company handsets, so it seems these devices have somehow been put through that by Numero LLC, but the question is how, since they’re not corporate handsets.
Android Authority theorizes that a compromised reseller account is to blame, or alternatively an unauthorized user might have exploited a vulnerability in Knox to tamper with the enterprise management settings. But that second theory would have required physical access to the phones, which seems less likely.
In any case, so far, the people posting about this issue haven’t had much luck getting it fixed, with Samsung support directing them to Knox technical teams, who then send them back to Samsung support.
This doesn’t currently appear to be a widespread issue, but it is a major one for those affected, so hopefully Samsung addresses it soon — we’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update this article if we hear back.
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