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Apple has suspended the use of the Walkie Talkie application in Apple Watch until the company repairs a newly discovered vulnerability that could allow someone to listen to it. 39; iPhone of a person without authorization, reported the TechCrunch information site.
The Walkie-Talkie app allows people who accept an invitation to talk with friends in real time without having to make a phone call. The parties press a button when you speak and release it to hear what the other party is saying. Apple introduced this feature last year as part of its WatchOS 5 update.
Apple told TechCrunch that this flaw could allow a person to listen without consent through the iPhone of a third party. Apple did not provide details on the vulnerability or how it could be exploited. The company said it learned about the existence of this vulnerability via its vulnerability reporting page. Apple is excused for this temporary suspension while the engineers were investigating and fixing the problem.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Apple representatives wrote:
We have just become aware of a vulnerability related to the Walkie Talkie application on the Apple Watch and have disabled the function while we are quickly solving the problem. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and restore functionality as soon as possible. Although we are not aware of any use of the vulnerability against a client and that specific conditions and sequences of events are necessary to exploit it, we take safety and security very seriously. the confidentiality of our customers. We concluded that disabling the application was the correct solution because this bug could allow someone to listen through the iPhone to another client without consent. We apologize again for this problem and the inconvenience.
The suspension of Walkie Talkie comes four months after Apple was strongly criticized for its treatment of a malicious listening vulnerability in the FaceTime messaging application. FacePalm, when the vulnerability was known, allowed people to listen to audio from another device simply by launching a FaceTime call and using a widely used group feature for conference call type discussions . Although the recipients saw a call coming in, they did not know that the person trying to connect could already hear the sound nearby and, in many cases, see the camera video from the camera.
Apple failed to take action regarding the bug for more than a week after receiving emails from a woman who had reported that her son's vulnerability was 14 years old. Apple finally corrected the loophole after news of it spread to social media and caught the attention of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
On Wednesday, Apple launched a silent update for Mac that removed a risky web server installed by the Zoom videoconferencing application.
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