When Did Apple Find Out?
It isn’t clear when Apple was made aware of the bug, but it appears that at least one user attempted to notify the firm about it over a week ago. Twitter user MGT7500 tweeted at Apple Support, Tim Cook and Fox News in a series of tweets on Jan. 20 and 21.
In those tweets, the user said that her 14-year-old son had discovered a “major security flaw” that allowed users to covertly listen in on audio. The tweets are genuine, so it isn’t clear why Apple didn’t address the bug’s existence sooner.
It’s possible that Apple was working on a fix but did not want to alert the public (and malicious third-parties) to the vulnerability by announcing it. Once word got out on Monday, there wasn’t anything Apple could do to mitigate its spread — except disable Group FaceTime.