⤠Serious FaceTime Bug Allows Eavesdropping of Microphone on iPhone & Mac, Hereās How to Protect Yourself
A serious privacy bug has been discovered in FaceTime for iOS and MacOS that allows remote eavesdropping on another persons iPhone or Mac, even if they donāt pick up and answer the FaceTime call. Essentially this means that anyone can remotely listen to the microphone of a targeted iPhone or Mac by a remarkably simple process.
Below weāll show you how you can test and reproduce the FaceTime eavesdropping microphone bug yourself, and weāll also show youĀ how to protect yourself from the FaceTime remote microphone / video access bugĀ by turning off FaceTime on Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Note: it appears that only iOS and macOS versions that support Group FaceTime are impacted by this bug, thus anything earlier than iOS 12.1 or macOS 10.14.1 is likely not effected. Apple is also apparently aware of the bug and will be releasing security patches later in the week.
How to Reproduce FaceTime Eavesdropping Bug & Remotely Listen to iPhone or Mac
- Start a FaceTime call with someone
- While the FaceTime call is ringing, tap the three dots or swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access the Group FaceTime feature
- Tap on āAdd Personā and addĀ your own phone numberĀ as the contact person to add to the FaceTime call
- The recipients iPhone or Mac will begin transmitting audio to you, even if they donāt answer the call
Going further, if the target presses the Power button on their iPhone, apparently it will start transmitting video as well.
What a lovely security bug! Not really, this is exceptionally bad. So obviously the question is how to protect yourself, which for now means disabling FaceTime completely.
How to Protect from FaceTime Eavesdropping Bug
Currently you can protect yourself or impacted devices from the remote FaceTime eavesdropping microphone / video camera bug by turning off FaceTime on the impacted devices. Hereās how to do that on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
How to Disable FaceTime on iPhone and iPad
- Open Settings on iPhone or iPad and go to āFaceTimeā
- Toggle the setting for āFaceTimeā to OFF
How to Disable FaceTime on Mac
- Open FaceTime, then pull down the āFaceTimeā menu and choose āTurn FaceTime Offā
High-security minded Mac users who had previously eitherĀ installed OverSight to detect camera and microphone activity on their MacĀ orĀ disabled the Mac FaceTime camera completelyĀ should also be immune from the bug, though itās possible that audio transmission could occur in the latter scenario.
If you have recently received a FaceTime call that you didnāt answer and you are concerned you are being listened to or watched remotely, simple turn off FaceTime or reboot your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and then turn off FaceTime.
As mentioned before, the remote eavesdropping microphone / video camera FaceTime bug appears to be related to the Group FaceTime feature which was introduced inĀ iOS 12.1 for iPhone and iPadĀ andĀ macOS 10.14.1 for Mac. In testing, we were not able to reproduce the bug when trying to connect to iPhone, Mac, or iPad that were running earlier iOS or MacOS system software versions.
The bug was apparently first publicized on Snapchat and Twitter by user @bmmanski where a short casual video is demonstrating the remote microphone access, that video was later noticed byĀ 9to5macĀ and other tech andĀ mainstream press. Itās possible this security flaw was known by others before this, however.
According toĀ Axios, Apple will be releasing an update later in the week to resolve the bug. Until then, you might want to consider disabling FaceTime on any impacted iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod touch.