March 27, 2018
In the series of data privacy concerns, another case has been brought to light by a Brazilian publication Mac Magazine. The report published by the Eduardo Marques has unveiled a serious privacy bug in iOS 11 that allows Siri to read out the hidden messages from the lock screen, even when the command is not given by the authenticated user.
It implies that anyone can now have access to the private messages on an iPhone, sent through a variety of apps, by simply asking Siri to read them out loud. The bug, though, doesn’t apply to the inbuilt apps like iMessage and is only limited to the third-party apps like Messenger and Whatsapp, it is a serious issue concerned with the privacy of the users.
What’s more troubling is that the issue went unnoticed by the company even after the launch of its latest stable version of iOS 11.2.6, and the beta version of iOS 11.3.
What’s Apple’s Response to This?
As per the report published by Economic Times, the company has responded of being apprised of the issue and has promised to fix it soon.
Though the exact timeline for the fix has yet not been announced, the official response by the company clarifies that “We are aware of the issue and it will be addressed in an upcoming software update”. This upcoming software update, that is the consumer version of iOS 11.3, is due for release in Spring 2018.
Image: Macworld –https://www.macworld.com/article/3106088/ios/sirious-mistakes.html
What Can You Do in the Meanwhile?
In order to ensure that no one gets unauthorised access to your hidden messages, you may want to disable Siri from the Lock Screen entirely. For that go to the settings of your iPhone and tap the ‘Siri & Search’ option. There disable the toggle button for ‘Allow Siri When Locked’. This will prevent anyone to take any undue advantage of the bug, until it is fixed by the company.
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