A class-action suit was filed against tech majors Apple Inc and T-Mobile in New York for failing to disclose a major security vulnerability to users that allowed bad guys to sneak into iMessage and FaceTime calls.
As per the lawsuit, filed in the Southern District Court of NY by Tigran Ohanian and Reggie Lopez, a technical flaw, allowed Apple IDs to be still linked to T-Mobile SIM cards even if they were being recycled- making the previous owner receive communication-related iMessage and Facetime linked to the new owner of a T-Mobile SIM card.
According to security experts, the said flaw existed since 2011 and so has made the plaintiffs file a privacy-related case in the court as Apple continued to mislead its customers despite the vulnerability in place.
Since T-Mobile and Apple failed terribly in preventing the issue from occurring, both the companies might be eligible to disburse compensation to at least the impacted users of the account-related data breaches.
Note 1- Ohanian and Lopez were touted as the victims to the iPhone and T-Mobile sim scam as messages meant for the latter were being addressed to Ohanian as he used the T-Mobile SIM card with the same number on a previous note.
Apple, however, argues that the issue was fixed with an update in its iOS 12 operating system that needs a 2FA for the Apple iMessage and Facetime related communication flow to the actual user.
A formal reaction to the lawsuit is awaited. But a source from T-Mobile states that the Telecom giant is well aware of the situation and will wisely deal with it through proper channels.
Note 2– SIM recycling is a process when a new user is allotted with the same phone number used by a previous user who submitted the SIM sometime ago to the company for reasons.
