14-year-old Grant Thompson, who found the recent Apple FaceTime bug that allowed users to spy on others before a call had been answered, could reportedly receive a financial “bug bounty” from Apple for identifying the problem.
According to Thompson’s mother Michele, who spoke to CNBC, an Apple executive flew over to meet the 14-year-old in Tucson, Arizona, and “thanked us in person and also asked for our feedback, asked us how they could improve their reporting process.”
“They also indicated that Grant would be eligible for the bug bounty program. And we would hear from their security team the following week in terms of what that meant,” Michele claimed. “If he got some kind of bug bounty for what he found, we’d certainly put it to good use for his college because I think he’s going to go far, hopefully. This is actually a field he was interested in before and even more so now.”
The FaceTime bug was revealed late last month and was verified by journalists.
Mashable reported at the time that the bug “lets a caller hear and see a person on the other end of a FaceTime call before the call has been answered,” allowing you to “take a digital peek into another person’s life — completely without their knowledge.”
“First, you call someone on FaceTime. Next, before they answer, swipe up and add yourself to the call. That’s it. You can hear through the person’s phone, all without them answering the call,” reported Mashable reporter Jack Morse.
Apple caused further controversy by acknowledging the bug and promising to fix it “in a software update later this week,” leaving Apple users exposed until its fix.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/k_gKi5RjJ4o/