Apple was slow to act on a FaceTime bug that allowed users to listen in on others, The New York Times is reporting.
The newspaper reported that Michele Thompson of Arizona had repeatedly notified the company about the problem for more than a week with little response from Apple The company finally reacted after a developer reported the flaw, sparking an article on the 9to5mac website.
The bug allowed a user to call someone on FaceTime and automatically begin hearing the other person before they pick up the call. The person on the other end was not aware the caller was able to hear them.
Apple disabled Group FaceTime and said it would release a fix later this week.
But the company’s slow response has raised concerns, the Times is reporting.
“If these kinds of bugs are slipping through,” said Patrick Wardle, co-founder of Digita Security, which focuses on Apple-related security, “you have to wonder if there are other problematic bugs that other hackers are exploiting that should have been caught.”
And Thompson, whose 14-year-old son discovered the bug, added in a letter provided to the newspaper: “My fear is that this flaw could be used for nefarious purposes. Although this certainly raises privacy and security issues for private individuals, there is the potential that this could impact national security if, for example, government members were to fall victim to this eavesdropping flaw.”
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