Samsung appears to be bringing a powerful new security feature to Galaxy phones with One UI 9. Code spotted inside Samsung’s Auto Blocker app by Android Authority suggests the company is planning to add ARM’s Memory Tagging Extension, or MTE, to future Galaxy devices.
MTE is a hardware-level feature that ARM introduced back in 2018 with its 8.5-A architecture. Its main job is to detect and prevent memory leaks — situations where apps or system components use more RAM than they’re supposed to, which can create vulnerabilities and cause instability.
With MTE active, the phone constantly checks that every app, service, and system process only uses the RAM allocated to it. This makes it much harder for bad actors to exploit memory-related weaknesses to breach the device.
Based on the code strings found, One UI 9 will give users a dedicated Memory Tagging Extension menu with two options — enabling MTE permanently or just for a single session until the next restart.
The benefits go beyond security too. MTE can help the operating system run more smoothly, with fewer crashes and better overall stability.
There is a catch, though. One of the code strings reads: “This can reduce your phone’s performance.” Keeping a constant check on RAM usage naturally takes up some resources, so users may notice a trade-off.
It’s not yet clear whether MTE will roll out to all Galaxy phones on One UI 9 or just flagship models. One UI 9 is still in very early testing, so more details should emerge over the coming months.
