Apple Disables Walkie Talkie App Due to Vulnerability That Could Allow iPhone Eavesdropping

Apple, in a statement to TechCrunch:

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.

I was just trying to use the Walkie Talkie feature today and chalked up its inability to connect to a bug. It’s not quite reliable enough, but when it works, it’s a fun and convenient feature.

★ Friday, 12 July 2019