Apple Temporarily Disables Walkie-Talkie App for Apple Watch Due to Eavesdropping Vulnerability
Apple has disabled the Walkie-Talkie app for Apple Watch due to a bug that could allow users to eavesdrop on others, reports TechCrunch.
The company issued a statement noting that it was just notified about the vulnerability and has temporarily disabled the Walkie-Talkie functionality while a fix is developed. The Walkie-Talkie app will remain installed on users' Apple Watches, but it will not be functional until the fix is deployed.
Apple's statement:
We were just made aware of a vulnerability related to the Walkie-Talkie app on the Apple Watch and have disabled the function as we quickly fix the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and will restore the functionality as soon as possible. Although we are not aware of any use of the vulnerability against a customer and specific conditions and sequences of events are required to exploit it, we take the security and privacy of our customers extremely seriously. We concluded that disabling the app was the right course of action as this bug could allow someone to listen through another customer’s iPhone without consent. We apologize again for this issue and the inconvenience.
Walkie-Talkie debuted last fall in watchOS 5, and it allows users to easily communicate with each other via voice from their wrists using a push-to-talk function.
As
TechCrunch points out, the issue is reminiscent of a
serious Group FaceTime bug discovered early this year that could allow callers to hear a user's audio without the call being accepted. In that scenario, Apple remotely disabled Group
FaceTime once the issue was discovered, and pushed out an emergency bug fix a week and a half later
as part of iOS 12.1.4.
Popular Stories
Apple will introduce new iPad Pro and iPad Air models in early May, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman previously suggested the new iPads would come out in March, and then April, but the timeline has been pushed back once again. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Apple is working on updates to both the iPad Pro and iPad Air models. The iPad Pro models will...
In November, Apple announced that the iPhone would support the cross-platform messaging standard RCS (Rich Communication Services) in the Messages app starting "later" in 2024, and Google has now revealed a more narrow timeframe. In a since-deleted section of the revamped Google Messages web page, spotted by 9to5Google, Google said that Apple would be adopting RCS on the iPhone in the "fall...
Thieves in Montreal, Canada have been using Apple's AirTags to facilitate vehicle theft, according to a report from Vermont news sites WCAX and NBC5 (via 9to5Mac). Police officers in Burlington, Vermont have issued a warning about AirTags for drivers who recently visited Canada. Two Burlington residents found Apple AirTags in their vehicles after returning from trips to Montreal, and these...
Apple's WWDC 2024 dates have been announced, giving us timing for the unveiling of the company's next round of major operating system updates and likely some other announcements. This week also saw some disappointing news on the iPad front, with update timing for the iPad Pro and iPad Air pushed back from previous rumors. We did hear some new tidbits about what might be coming in iOS 18 and...
Photos of the first iPhone 16 cases have been shared online, offering another preview of the rumored new vertical rear camera arrangement on the standard iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. Image credit: Accessory leaker Sonny Dickson Over the last few months, Apple has been experimenting with different camera bump designs for the standard iPhone 16 models, all of which have featured a vertical ...
A $3 third-party app can now record spatial video on iPhone 15 Pro models in a higher resolution than Apple's very own Camera app. Thanks to an update first spotted by UploadVR, Spatialify can now record spatial videos with HDR in 1080p at 60fps or in 4K at 30fps. In comparison, Apple's native Camera app is limited to recording spatial video in 1080p at 30fps. Shortly after Apple's Vision ...
Top Rated Comments
They found a bug, they temporarily disabled an app to prevent issues, they’re fixing it.
Sounds ok to me.
I wonder if other manufacturers would fix an equivalent bug so quickly?