A 14-year-old discovered Apple's critical FaceTime bug while playing Fortnite

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Apple was introduced to a new bug in FaceTime that lets a user listen and even see everything said and done by the person on the opposite side before the receiver accepts the call. Apple has acknowledged this FaceTime bug and shut down the group FaceTime servers. However, before the world knew about this serious privacy issue, a 14-year-old from Arizona, USA found the issue while playing the eSport online game Fortnite with his friends.

Grant Thompson was playing Fortnite with his friends on January 19 and decided to call his friends so that they could talk while playing the game. He dialled a friend and was able to hear his friend talking even when the FaceTime call was not answered. Thompson informed his mother, Michele Thompson about the issue who immediately warned Apple via many emails that were sent over the week before the bug went viral.

Apple’s iPhone wasn’t the only device affected by the bug. Every device that supports FaceTime — iPads, Macs, iPods — were affected by the major security hole. After the flaw became public, Apple temporarily shut down the group FaceTime feature as the System Status page was updated to 'Issue- Group FaceTime is temporarily unavailable'

My teen found a major security flaw in Apple’s new iOS. He can listen in to your iPhone/iPad without your approval. I have video. Submitted bug report to @AppleSupport...waiting to hear back to provide details. Scary stuff! #apple #bugreport @foxnews

— MGT7 (@MGT7500) January 21, 2019

One of many emails sent to Apple 1 week ago attempting to report the Group FaceTime bug. @cnbc @cnn @foxnews @9to5mac pic.twitter.com/l9IFMZmKh6

— MGT7 (@MGT7500) January 29, 2019

An Apple representative informed Thompson over the phone that she would need to register as a developer to report the bug(s) to the company. After Thompson did that, Apple responded to her on January 23, but they did not mention anything about fixing the flaw.

The company introduced Group FaceTime in October with iOS 12.1. Apple said it would be releasing a patch for the security flaw this week. Till then, group FaceTime would stay offline.