Apple to Cover College Costs for Teen Who Discovered FaceTime Bug

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Apple to Cover College Costs for Teen Who Discovered FaceTime Bug 

Apple rolled out a software update to resolve the FaceTime bug on iOS and macOS, and in addition to re-enabling group calls on its platforms, the company is also making a decision that has less to do with its software.

The Cupertino-based tech giant has decided to contribute to the education of the teenager who discovered the bug in FaceTime.

“In addition to addressing the bug that was reported, our team conducted a thorough security audit of the FaceTime service and made additional updates to both the FaceTime app and server to improve security,” Apple was quoted as saying in a statement for Reuters.

The cited source says the company will compensate the family and also make “an additional gift” for the education of the 14-year-old Grant Thompson who came across the bug.Privacy concernsThe FaceTime glitch allowed anyone to see and hear contacts without them even answering calls. According to Thompson’s family, the bug was submitted approximately one week before it was disclosed publicly, but Apple ignored the report.

The company eventually decided to block Group FaceTime completely once it was discovered that users could snoop on each other, promising a fix that would resolve it by the end of the week. The fix was eventually delayed until this week, as Apple needed additional time for testing and to complete work on a couple of other patches that were included in today’s release.

Apple hasn’t mentioned how much it’s going to donate for the education of the 14-year-old teen, but the company is typically offering bounties up to $200,000 for bugs discovered in its software.

In the meantime, users are recommended to install iOS 12.1.4 as soon as possible, as Group FaceTime would no longer work on older versions of the operating system.

 

 

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