Apple apologizes for Group FaceTime security flaw, says fix is coming next week

Tim Cook

Apple says it has deployed a ready for the widespread Group FaceTime glitch to its servers and that information technology volition be released adjacent calendar week, according to a statement sent to multiple publications.

In the same statement, Apple also thanked the "Thompson family" for reporting the bug, presumably referring to Twitter user @MGT7500, the individual who is believed to have been one of the outset people to report the bug to Apple. It turns out that person is Michele Thompson, the mother of the 14-year-old teen that Apple believes uncovered the bug while using the Group FaceTime with friends, according to CNBC.

Soon after the bug was revealed, Apple disabled Group FaceTime while it worked on a gear up for the flaw.

As a upshot of the exploit, Apple at present faces multiple lawsuits, including one in Montreal and another in New York.

Prior to Apple tree disabling Group FaceTime, here's how the glitch worked: users needed to launch a conference call, input someone'southward phone number and so add the number of an boosted person.

While waiting for the first individual to pick up, if the 2nd participant answered, the audio feed from the offset contact was automatically turned on, allowing the caller to hear what the showtime call recipient was saying fifty-fifty if they didn't answer.

Below is Apple's full statement regarding the Grouping FaceTime bug:

"Nosotros have fixed the Grouping FaceTime security issues on Apple'south server's and we volition event a security update to re-enable the feature for users side by side week. We give thanks the Thompson family for reporting the issues.

We sincerely apologize to our customers who were afflicted and all who were concerned about this security issue. We appreciate everyone's patience as nosotros complete this process.

We want to clinch our customers that as soon as our engineering team became aware of the details necessary to reproduce the problems, they quickly disabled Group FaceTime and began piece of work on the fix. We are committed to improving the procedure by which we receive and escalate these reports, in order to become them to the right people equally fast as possible.

We accept the security of our products extremely seriously and we are committed to continuing to earn the trust Apple customers place in united states of america."

Via: 9to5Mac, CNBC