Samsung has been flooding the airwaves with the October 2023 security update for numerous Galaxy devices this week, and the update has now reached the original Galaxy S Fan Edition, the Galaxy S20 FE.
The LTE version of the Galaxy S20 FE, which is powered by the Exynos 990 chipset, is getting the update in nearly a dozen countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico, and Switzerland. The update comes with firmware version ending in HWI7 and only brings new security fixes.
The October 2023 security patch for Samsung devices fixes two critical vulnerabilities discovered in the core Android OS and 12 vulnerabilities that are a concern only on Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
Some of those vulnerabilities pose the risk of letting attackers access various parts of the software without the user's consent and doing things such as running harmful code, enabling and disabling Wi-Fi networks, installing a different version of an app, and a few others. A few vulnerabilities have also been left undisclosed to prevent them from being exploited before the October patch has reached all eligible devices.
Galaxy S20 FE owners can check if the update is available for their country through our firmware archive, or they can just directly try to download it from the phone's Settings » Software update menu. Alternatively, they can download the full-sized firmware from our archive and install it on the phone using a Windows PC.
As of October 12, only the LTE variant of the Galaxy S20 FE is getting the October security patch, but you can expect the Snapdragon-powered 5G model to join the LTE variant soon. Just don't expect Android 14 and One UI 6.0 for either variant, as the Galaxy S20 FE, like the Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra, launched running Android 10 and was only eligible for three major OS upgrades.
