- Mysterious company called Numero LLC takes control of some Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra units after factory reset
- This gives them full control over the phone and appears to prevent users from completing the setup process.
- It’s unclear how this happened, and Samsung is said to do little to help affected users.
Bugs and hacking attempts are common dangers of smartphone ownership, but a slightly more unusual peril is currently plaguing some Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra devices.
Android Authority found several reports of Galaxy S22 Ultra users losing access to their phone after a factory reset, with a message stating that “this Galaxy S22 Ultra is not private” and then clarifying that it is instead run by an unknown organization called Numero LLC.
Not only is the name of this company unknown, but these are also supposedly personal phones that were not provided by any organization.
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Being run by Numero LLC means this mysterious company can monitor and control phone settings and data, so it’s a major security issue, but it appears most affected users were unable to proceed with setup after this screen appeared, leaving their phones essentially bricked.
A strange situation
It’s not entirely clear what’s going on here: Samsung offers a tool called Knox Mobile Enrollment, which allows businesses to automatically configure company handsets. So it appears that these devices were subjected to this in some way by Numero LLC, but the question is how, since they are not corporate handsets.
Android Authority theorizes that a compromised reseller account is to blame, or that an unauthorized user may have exploited a Knox vulnerability to tamper with the company’s management settings. But this second theory would have required physical access to the phones, which seems less likely.
Regardless, so far people posting about this issue haven’t had much luck resolving it, with Samsung support directing them to Knox tech teams, who then refer them to Samsung support.
This does not appear to be a widespread problem at the moment, but it is a major problem for those affected. So I hope Samsung fixes it soon. We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.
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