AndroidOperating system · Google

CVE-2019-20624

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-03-24
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was discovered on Samsung mobile devices with N(7.x) and O(8.x) software. S-Voice leaks keyboard learned words via the lock screen. The Samsung ID is SVE-2018-12981 (February 2019).

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

S-Voice (Samsung's voice assistant) on mobile devices with Android N (7.x) and O (8.x) improperly exposes keyboard learned words through the lock screen interface, allowing unauthorized users to view sensitive data that users have typed and the keyboard has learned.

MitigationApply the vendor-supplied Samsung security update (SVE-2018-12981) to affected devices to patch the S-Voice application and prevent lock screen leakage of learned keyboard data.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
AndroidOperating system
Affected:= 7.0= 7.1.0= 7.1.1= 7.1.2= 8.0= 8.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check Android version
    Go to Settings > About Phone > Android version. Alternatively, run 'getprop ro.build.version.release' in ADB shell or check the system settings UI.
    Affected if The Android version is 7.0, 7.1.0, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 8.0, or 8.1
  2. Verify S-Voice app presence
    Check if the S-Voice application is installed on the device. This can be done by looking in the app drawer for S-Voice, or by running 'pm list packages | grep svoice' in ADB shell.
    Affected if S-Voice is installed on the device
  3. Confirm lock screen access to learned keyboard data
    From the lock screen, attempt to invoke S-Voice (typically by pressing and holding the home button or using a voice wake command if configured). Then try to access any learned words, predicted text, or keyboard data through the S-Voice interface while the device remains locked.
    Affected if S-Voice is accessible from the lock screen and exposes learned keyboard words or typed data to an unauthorized user

A user is affected if their device runs Android 7.0-8.1, has S-Voice installed, and S-Voice can be accessed from the lock screen to reveal learned keyboard data.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply the vendor-supplied Samsung security update (SVE-2018-12981) to affected devices to patch the S-Voice application and prevent lock screen leakage of learned keyboard data.

Fix this in Android Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
5.0 hours of engineering $880
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-20624 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-20624 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data