Apple says it has deployed a fix for the widespread Group FaceTime glitch to its servers and that it will be released next week, according to a statement sent to multiple publications.
In the same statement, Apple also thanked the “Thompson family” for reporting the bug, presumably referring to Twitter user @MGT7500, the individual who is believed to have been one of the first people to report the bug to Apple. It turns out that person is Michele Thompson, the mother of the 14-year-old teen that Apple believes uncovered the bug while using the Group FaceTime with friends, according to CNBC.
Shortly after the bug was revealed, Apple disabled Group FaceTime while it worked on a fix for the flaw.
As a result of the exploit, Apple now faces multiple lawsuits, including one in Montreal and another in New York.
Prior to Apple disabling Group FaceTime, here’s how the glitch worked: users needed to launch a conference call, input someone’s phone number and then add the number of an additional person.
While waiting for the first individual to pick up, if the second participant answered, the audio feed from the first contact was automatically turned on, allowing the caller to hear what the first call recipient was saying even if they didn’t answer.
Below is Apple’s full statement regarding the Group FaceTime bug:
“We have fixed the Group FaceTime security bug on Apple’s server’s and we will issue a security update to re-enable the feature for users next week. We thank the Thompson family for reporting the bug.
We sincerely apologize to our customers who were affected and all who were concerned about this security issue. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we complete this process.
We want to assure our customers that as soon as our engineering team became aware of the details necessary to reproduce the bug, they quickly disabled Group FaceTime and began work on the fix. We are committed to improving the process by which we receive and escalate these reports, in order to get them to the right people as fast as possible.
We take the security of our products extremely seriously and we are committed to continuing to earn the trust Apple customers place in us.”
