FaceTime Security Flaw Gives Apple a Black Eye: Analysts

Apple's FaceTime video chat app remained out of service Wednesday morning after being temporarily disabled by the company Jan. 28 due to a security flaw that can enable a caller to hear audio from the receiver's end before the call is accepted. That's not supposed to happen, and not only is it an embarrassing and troubling error for Apple, but it is also a potentially serious threat to its consumer and business users, several mobile IT analysts told eWEEK. "This is a critical, show-stopping bug that directly impacts Apple's reputation for maintaining user privacy," said Avi Greengart, a mobile analyst with GlobalData. "Whatever impact the temporary shutdown has on consumers and businesses is swamped by the need for Apple to address this quickly." Because FaceTime is generally more of a consumer product than an enterprise application, the security flaw involving the app is more of a personal security issue than something most businesses need to worry about, said Greengart. "Apple is also expected to fix the bug shortly, and FaceTime is hardly the only video calling app, so the outage should be a temporary inconvenience. But it does highlight the importance for IT of regular security updates for all communications software, not just operating systems."