After nailing a bug that caused a security flaw, apple made a decision to disable the walkie talkie app in the apple watch because this bug allow users to eavesdrop on other iPhones.
Walkie talkie app enable users to chat directly by talking to the wrest. The app was first introduced in WatchOS 5. This particular bug was first reported by TechCurnch and allegedly pinted out by Appl’s Bug Reporting Portal .
In a statement given to TechCrunch, Apple said there have been no reports of the vulnerability being used against actual customers, and that “specific conditions and sequences of events are required to exploit it.”
To solve this issue,Apple decided to disable the app until a bug fix is applied. How ever, Apple didn’t specify when walkie talkie app will go live again.
Earlier this year a bug was discovered in the group calling feature of FaceTime that allowed people to listen in before a call was accepted. It turned out that the teen who discovered the bug, Grant Thompson, had attempted to contact Apple about the issue but was unable to get a response. Apple fixed the bug and eventually rewarded Thompson a bug bounty. This time around, Apple appears to be listening more closely to the reports that come in via its vulnerability tips line and has disabled the feature.
The Walkie Talkie security flaw comes right on the news of a serious vulnerability that allowed teleconferencing app Zoom to hijack Mac computers. And to be fair with Apple, that’s not really Apple’s fault, as Zoom to be held responsible of installing what a security researcher described as insecure local web servers on Macs to bypass an additional Apple security feature. For its part, yesterday Apple silently released an update for Mac users to remove the hidden server Zoom installed on Macs.