Google has a Stagefright bug fix for Android owners

By Benjamin SnyderManaging Editor
Benjamin SnyderManaging Editor

Benjamin Snyder is Fortune's managing editor, leading operations for the newsroom.

Prior to rejoining Fortune, he was a managing editor at Business Insider and has worked as an editor for Bloomberg, LinkedIn and CNBC, covering leadership stories, sports business, careers and business news. He started his career as a breaking news reporter at Fortune in 2014.

Stagefright, the bug that affects nearly 1 billion of Google’s (GOOG) Android phones and is exploitable via a single text, has a fix.

Google announced that the bug was handled in a recent software update to its Android phones.

The security firm Zimperium found that 95% of Android phones were vulnerable to the malware by opening the text message. However, Google told CNBC Wednesday that 90% of Android devices were protected because of what’s called “address space layout randomization.”

Google has also said that there will be updates to its Messenger service in which video messages won’t play automatically when previewed. That would halt an attacker from infecting devices through a similar method in the future.

For more on Stagefright, here’s a Fortune explainer on the bug.