If you’ve been waiting to install iOS 13 onto your iPhone, be warned: The new operating system released by Apple on Thursday comes with a major privacy-related flaw.
The new update allows hackers who steal a phone to access its contact details without a passcode or Face ID identification, a person familiar with the flaw told CNN Business, While the hacker would need to physically have the phone to retrieve the information, your address book and information about those you communicate with most frequently can be potentially exposed.
And it looks like Apple knew about this glitch since July. Cybersecurity researcher José Rodriguez told Apple that he’d found a “passcode bypass” glitch on July 3 through the company’s Apple Security Bounty program for reporting problems. Apple staff have followed up with Rodriguez about his find but, after finding out that Apple wasn’t likely to fix the flaw before iOS 13’s release date, Rodriguez announced his discovery publicly.
In general, iOS 13 is not as seamless as many had hoped, with users reporting random crashes as well as glitches in iMessages and AirDrop.
“We’ve run into a lot of significant bugs,” writes The Verge in a review. “Apps randomly crash when opening them, cellular signals drop, the Camera app can be slow, pictures have randomly gotten new dates assigned to them, AirDrop has had issues, the text field flips out sometimes in iMessages, and more.”
The good news is that Apple is aware of the glitches and has accelerated the release of iOS 13.1 from September 30 to September 24. For the privacy of your real estate contacts, however, you might want to hold off until then to make the update.
