# Researcher reports Android SMS flaw that can disable telephony

_Published Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 4:20 AM EDT · Security · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

A researcher has published a proof of concept for an Android flaw that they say lets a malformed SMS crash the phone's telephony process without user interaction, dropping active calls, including emergency calls. The disclosure reports successful tests on a Pixel 9 running April 2026 firmware and multiple Samsung models.

The researcher attributes the crash to an unchecked message header length. Repeated messages reportedly corrupted the SMS database, causing telephony to fail on every boot; carrier redelivery could trigger the problem again after a factory reset.

The researcher says Google classified the issue as non-security across three tickets. The proof-of-concept app and source code are public on GitHub.

## Sources

- [smsofdeath.com](https://smsofdeath.com/)

---
Canonical: https://techandbusiness.org/newswire/n7zAD4oJTDFKCWXLX1J5D-
Published: 2026-10-29T08:20:10.317Z
Story chronology: 2026-10-29T07:08:50.000Z
Retrieved: 2026-10-29T10:44:09.833Z
Publisher: Tech & Business (techandbusiness.org)