Apple releases update to prevent FaceTime eavesdropping
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Grant Thompson and his mother, Michele, looked at an iPhone in the familys kitchen in Tucson, Ariz., today. The 14-year-old stumbled upon a bug in the iPhones FaceTime group-chatting feature on Jan. 19 while calling his friends to play a video game.
SAN FRANCISCO >> Apple has released an iPhone update to fix a FaceTime flaw that allowed people to eavesdrop on others while using its group video chat feature.
The repair is included in the latest version of Apple’s iOS 12 system, which became available to install today.
The bug allowed some people to turn an iPhone into a live microphone while using Group FaceTime. Apple turned off the group chat feature last week, several days after a 14-year-old boy in Tucson, Arizona, discovered the flaw. He and his mom tried to contact Apple for several days before the company responded.
The delay in responding to the flaw raised questions about Apple’s handling of it.
Apple credited the Tucson teenager, Grant Thompson, for discovering the FaceTime bug.
