Apple Disables Walkie Talkie due to Bug

Apple has disabled the Walkie Talkie app on Apple Watch because of a vulnerability that could let someone secretly eavesdrop on your iPhone (via TechCrunch).

Walkie Talkie

Walkie Talkie lets two people send/receive audio chats with a push to talk interface like how traditional walkie talkies work. Apple was alerted to the vulnerability from its reporting webpage, and says currently there is no evidence that it was exploited.

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.

Although the Walkie Talkie app hasn’t been removed from devices, it will not work for the time being.

Further Reading:

[Apple Releases Mac Update to Remove Zoom Web Server]

[Apple Summoned to Capitol Hill to Testify on Antitrust]

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