We discovered safety hardware vulnerability in Samsung tablet computer model
SM-T580 16GB SN: R52M20EG5WR ? dangerous overheat of the tablet lithium-ion
battery caused by short circuit to flash LED, which caused more likely by failed
LED controlling hardware. We believe that similar design have other mobile
computerized devices utilizing flash LED for digital camera. The computer in
question has been in use for only three weeks. The temperature outside of the
case was approximately 55C in open space. The LED was shining while the computer
was power down. The battery discharged within approximately one hour.
There is high degree of risk of overheating and potential fire and/or explosion
related to the technology of lithium-ion batteries. In particular, if the device
is packed inside of a luggage.
Two Samsung companies in the US have been informed, but have not really proposed
an investigation claiming high quality of the company products. We also informed
TSA in three separate inquires (one to FAA), American Airlines and UK based The
Registry news portal.
However, considering that a lot of people in CentOS community use tablets and
smartphones we decided to inform about existing risks caused by specific design
of the hardware and may be firmware as well.
Complete information and documents related to this case are on
www.rubos.com<http://www.rubos.com>.
Mikhail Utin
Rubos, Inc.
