Apple has disabled its Walkie Talkie app for Apple Watch due to a safety concern that would enable an individual to pay attention to one other individual’s iPhone conversations with out consent, the corporate introduced.
Apple reported the vulnerability Thursday, saying the corporate is working to “quickly fix the issue.”
They apologized for the bug and for the inconvenience to prospects for not having the ability to use the function in the course of the time they work on fixing it.
“We were just made aware of a vulnerability related to the Walkie-Talkie app on the Apple Watch and have disabled the function as we quickly fix the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and will restore the functionality as soon as possible,” Apple stated.
The firm stated it was not conscious of anybody exploiting the vulnerability, however they determined the bug was so critical that disabling the Walkie Talkie app was the “right course of action.”
“This bug could allow someone to listen through another customer’s iPhone without consent,” Apple stated.
“Although we are not aware of any use of the vulnerability against a customer and specific conditions and sequences of events are required to exploit it, we take the security and privacy of our customers extremely seriously. We concluded that disabling the app was the right course of action as this bug could allow someone to listen through another customer’s iPhone without consent. We apologize again for this issue and the inconvenience,” They stated.
Apple didn’t give any additional particulars in regards to the nature of the vulnerability, which was reported to Apple via the corporate’s official “Report a security or privacy vulnerability” portal.
The Walkie-Talkie app, which was launched in June 2018, permits two Watch customers to ship audio messages to one another through a “push to talk” interface.
In January this 12 months, Apple found {that a} FaceTime bug in iOS allowed customers to eavesdrop on different customers, prompting them to quickly disable the Group FaceTime function.
The Walkie-Talkie bug will not be the one safety concern Apple has been coping with not too long ago. Earlier, the corporate additionally eliminated a harmful a part of Zoom’s Mac app.
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