14 DAY TRIAL // A major vulnerability in FaceTime allows anyone to see and hear contacts before they answer a group call, and Apple decided to suspend the feature completely until a fix is released.
And while the discovery has prompted an instant reaction of the Cupertino-based tech giant, it looks like the company actually knew there was a critical issue in Group FaceTime, only that it didn’t do anything about it.
Twitter user @MGT7500 posted a message on January 21 to warn of a major bug in FaceTime that would have enabled anyone to listen on contacts even when calls weren’t answered.
“My teen found a major security flaw in Apple’s new iOS. He can listen in to your iPhone/iPad without your approval. I have video. Submitted bug report to @AppleSupport...waiting to hear back to provide details. Scary stuff!” the original tweet reads.
Apple never answered
But as it turns out, Apple actually ignored the report and the company only acted to block exploits earlier today when the vulnerability made the headlines. As the user explains, he used all contact methods to reach out to Apple, only for his messages to be ignored by the firm.
“I have letters, emails, tweets and msgs. sent to Apple for 10+ days reporting the Group FaceTime bug that lets someone listen in. My teenager discovered it! Never heard back from them,” he posted earlier today.
While Apple has remained completely tight-lipped on what happened in this case and whether the company ignored the bug report or not, it’s likely the firm was working on a fix and planned to include it in a future software update.
However, the bug going viral forced Apple to pull Group FaceTime completely until work on the fix is completed.
Needless to say, news that Apple might have known about this issue has been received with criticism by the WWW, so the company is at least worth an explanation as to how it managed this bug report and why a fix wasn’t provided before everything went public, eventually exposing its users.