Apple Hit With Lawsuit Over FaceTime Eavesdropping Bug
Apple is already facing its first lawsuit over the FaceTime eavesdropping bug that was discovered just last night, reports Bloomberg.
Houston lawyer Larry Williams II today filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming that his iPhone allowed an unknown person to listen in on sworn testimony during a client deposition.
He is suing Apple for unspecified punitive damages for negligence, product liability, misrepresentation, and warranty breach. The bug, says Williams, violates the privacy of a person's "most intimate conversations without consent."
The FaceTime bug in question was widely publicized yesterday after making the rounds on social media. By exploiting a bug in Group FaceTime, a person could force a FaceTime connection with another person, providing access to a user's audio and sometimes video even when the FaceTime call was not accepted.
There was no way to avoid malicious FaceTime calls forced to connect in this manner short of turning off FaceTime, but after the issue received attention, Apple disabled Group FaceTime server side, and the feature remains unavailable. With Group FaceTime turned off, the exploit is not available and no one is in danger of being spied on via their Apple devices through the FaceTime bug.
Apple is planning to implement a fix via a software update later this week, but the company has not commented on how long this bug was available before it was widely shared. Group FaceTime has been available since iOS 12.1 was released in October.
A woman whose teenage son initially discovered the bug says that she contacted Apple multiple times starting on January 20, and even sent a video demonstrating the issue, but she received no response from the company.
Popular Stories
Apple is working on a number of new products that are set to launch this fall, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that it will be "the widest array" of new devices that Apple has introduced in its history.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explains that Apple is working on four new flagship iPhones (iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max), an updated low-end Ma...
Three months after their launch, the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros continue to experience high demand and seemingly short supply, with shipping dates for both models stretching into multiple weeks in several of Apple's key markets.
In the United States, the baseline 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro chip is estimated to ship in three to four weeks, promising an arrival by at least...
Dropbox today announced that users who update to macOS 12.3 once that software version becomes available may temporarily encounter issues with opening online-only files in some third-party apps on their Mac.
In a support document and an email to customers, Dropbox said it is actively working on full support for online-only files on macOS 12.3 and will begin rolling out an updated version of...
Apple has always emphasized the depth of thought that goes into the design of its products. In the foreword to Designed by Apple in California, a photo book released by the company in 2016, Jony Ive explains how Apple strives "to define objects that appear effortless" and "so simple, coherent and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative."
But every once in a while even Apple...
Apple today announced the Black Unity Braided Solo Loop for the Apple Watch, as well as a new downloadable watch face, to celebrate Black History Month. Following the launch of the limited edition Black Unity Apple Watch Series 6 and Sport Band in 2021, Apple today launched the Black Unity Braided Solo Loop as part of its celebrations for Black History Month this year.Apple is launching a...
AT&T today announced the launch of upgraded AT&T Fiber plans, which support speeds of up to 5 Gigabits for some customers. There are two separate plans, one "2 GIG" plan and one "5 GIG" plan, available to new and existing AT&T Fiber subscribers.
According to AT&T, the new plans are available to nearly 5.2 million customers across 70 metro areas including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, San...
Benchmark results have started to surface for MSI's new GE76 Raider, one of the first laptops to be powered by Intel's new 12th-generation Core i9 processor.
Intel previously said that its new high-end Core i9 processor is faster than Apple's M1 Max chip in the 16-inch MacBook Pro and, as noted by Macworld, early Geekbench 5 results do appear to confirm this claim, but there are several...
Apple today released iOS 15.3 and iPadOS 15.3, the third major updates to the iOS and iPadOS 15 operating systems that were released in September 2021. iOS and iPadOS 15.3 come almost two weeks after the release of iOS and iPadOS 15.2.1, minor bug fix updates.
The iOS 15.3 and iPadOS 15.3 updates can be downloaded for free and the software is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in ...
Top Rated Comments