Apple’s massive Facetime bug, which “allows for users to eavesdrop on others while a call is still ringing”, was found as early as last week by a 14 year-old kid who was trying to get his friends together for a Fortnite session.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Grant Thompson, from Tucson, was “setting up a FaceTime chat with friends ahead of a ‘Fortnite’ video game-playing session when he stumbled on the bug”.
It was then that Thompson noticed that he could hear audio from friends who had yet to join the call. Grant quickly told his mother, Michele, and the pair spent a week trying to contact Apple to warn them about the issue.
The WSJ say after some calls and faxes they “eventually traded a few emails” with Apple’s security team, but it wasn’t until reports of the bug blew up on Twitter that the decision was made to disable Group Facetime.
The bug has been an absolute security disaster for Apple, for whom 2019 could have started a whole lot better.
Comments
11 responses to “14 Year-Old Kid Found Apple’s Facetime Bug During Fortnite Session, Tried To Warn Apple”
Does Microsoft still pay people that find flaws like this on Xbox, I think I remember correctly that a kid got passed parental controls somehow and when his father contacted them they gave the kid a bunch of games and lifetime Xbox live.
How much dirt can you get in 20 seconds of ring time?
Well… the times you are not answering a call are likely the times you least want to be heard by people you don’t know are listening. Doesn’t require much of an imagination to come up with some pretty compromising situations.
“Argh, what does this
cuntwant now?”Love that spoiler comedy gold
😀 well played.
Your self-esteem may take a hit:
“ooooh not this heckin’-hecker again…. Oh Hello darling!”
Or worse – “Shhh, its my husband”…
I read the full story over cnet, it is truly incredible the lengths the mother went to report the bug and all went virtually unanswered.
My friend works for Apple and she was joking about wondering how on earth anyone could discover such a thing, why do I find it just so hilarious that the answer is a 14 year playing Fortnite. Priceless.
Was thinking the same. Of all the combinations of things that could find it, a 14 year old playing Fortnite was the one that did. That is as real life a meta as you’ll ever see.
All of these massive corporations are absolutely impossible to get a hold of. Apple, Facebook, Google. It’s infuriating. Particularly FB.