Brian X. Chen reports:
The iPhone as an eavesdropping device? Watch out. It can happen.
On Monday, Twitter and other social networking sites lit up with anxious Apple users after the news site 9to5Mac reported on a strange glitch in the company’s iPhones. The issue: It turns out that an iPhone user can call another iPhone user and listen in on that person’s conversations through the device’s microphone — even if the recipient does not answer the call.
The problem was the result of a bug and involves Apple’s FaceTime app for placing video and audio calls over an internet connection. The bug could also give a caller access to a live feed of the recipient’s camera.
Read more on New York Times.
On Twitter last night, @RayRedacted added what appears to be a claim from the parent of the teen who discovered the bug:
From the parent of the 14 year old boy who discovered the FaceTime barge in bug that allows remote monitoring of modern versions of iOS 12: https://t.co/7mm35SxEmi
— Ray [REDACTED] (@RayRedacted) January 29, 2019
The parent, @MGT7500 wrote:
FYI- I called, FB messaged, faxed, emailed and tweeted Apple exhaustively last week to no avail. Submitted official bug report also. Tried to keep it private b/c of the security concerns. Never heard from them.