Microsoft customers hit by new Android replace
Tens of millions of Home windows customers linking their PCs to their telephones are in for a nasty shock once they upgrade to Android 15. The Cellphone Hyperlink app that makes it work has fallen foul of one in every of Google’s new safety enhancements. “Sure notifications are actually hidden,” they are going to be warned, “in your safety.”
Noticed by Mishaal Rahman and shared on X, the replace is already prompting complaints. “I verify that that is very annoying,” learn one reply, “as I closely depend on notification mirroring for my 2FA codes. There ought to be an choice to whitelist sure apps to make sure uninterrupted entry to crucial notifications.”
As Windows Central explains, “Home windows Cellphone Hyperlink is one in every of Home windows 11’s greatest options, however with the newest Android 15 replace, it is about to get rather less helpful. With Android 15, Google has applied a brand new habits that mechanically redacts delicate notifications from being despatched to ‘untrusted’ notification listeners, and this may have an effect on Cellphone Hyperlink on sure units.”
Microsoft has confirmed this, warning that “Cellphone Hyperlink now not exhibits notifications that include delicate data in your safety.” This impacts Cellphone Hyperlink apps put in from Play Retailer and never these preinstalled on units. This seems like excellent news for Samsung customers and dangerous information for Pixel customers.
However in a world the place Microsoft promises you can “make and take calls, reply to texts, verify and dismiss notifications—all out of your Home windows PC with out even taking your cellphone out of your pocket,” this newest change is one thing of a catastrophe.
Per Android Authority, “Android 15 modifications issues by designating notifications with two-factor authentication codes as ‘delicate’ and solely permitting ‘trusted’ Notification Listener providers to learn them. Any ‘untrusted’ Notification Listener service that tries to learn notifications with two-factor authentication codes will merely be given a message stating, ‘delicate notification content material hidden’.”
It’s, says Tech Radar, “a second that reminds us that Google and Microsoft are certainly two totally different firms… You’ll be able to nonetheless verify messages, handle apps, and make calls. It’s simply that you simply’ll must bodily verify your cellphone for some delicate messages after putting in Android 15, in the event you don’t already.”
Google had warned that this was coming, explaining that “Android 15 introduces sturdy measures to fight one-time passcode (OTP) fraud and to guard the person’s delicate content material… Key enhancements embrace redacting OTPs from notifications accessible to untrusted apps, hiding notifications throughout screenshare, and securing app actions when OTPs are posted. These modifications goal to maintain the person’s delicate content material secure from unauthorized actors.”
Whereas no-one had anticipated this might impression one thing as elementary because the hyperlink between a person’s cellphone and PC, the masking of OTPs is crucial. Warning after warning highlights Android’s vulnerability to apps that trick customers into granting them permission to learn texts, and which then steal these codes.
