It has just been revealed on Monday that Apple has a significant security bug in their FaceTime app.
Looking at the article, Attorney Michele Thompson posted about her son’s discovery of this bug, which allowed a FaceTime caller to eavesdrop on the recipient without them knowing that the caller can listen to what is happening on their end, all without answering the call. The attorney states that she has been posting about this issue since January 20 and it took Apple a little over a week to address the matter.
Video Demonstrating The Bug
The video above by MacRumors shows how the glitch can be reproduced and analyzed. It appears that the glitch does in fact allow both parties to hear each other without the recipient’s call acceptance. Then if the recipient presses the lock button after the call is initiated, the caller can see what the front-facing camera is picking up–all without a notification, leaving the recipient never even knowing that they can be seen.
Axios has received a statement from Apple stating that:
Apple to Axios
“We’re aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week”
While they are fixing the issue, Apple has temporarily shut off FaceTime services for group calls:
Apple has always been a company that takes the privacy and security of their users very seriously. So, I do believe that they will be working hard to prevent issues like this to come up again. Since the Group FaceTime feature is a new feature, for it to be foolproof on launch is rarely the case. Issues that weren’t discovered when the quality control team was testing the stability will emerge eventually, once millions of every day users start to push the limits of the app. Hence, this case should not discourage users from feeling that Apple is now beginning to slip on privacy and security.
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