TEMPO.CO, San Francisco - Google announced on Monday, October 8 that it would close its social media feature Google Plus after finding the security vulnerability that could expose 500,000 users private data.
Google hid the issue from its users since its discovery on March as it deemed there was no third party accessed users personal information, as quoted from New York Times on October 8.
As many as 438 applications made by outside developers possibly had access to users private data. However, Google claimed they were not aware of the security flaw, and no indication showed that the data had been touched.
Newsweek reported that Google said it repaired the bug right after its finding on March 2018.
“Google looked at the type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response. None of these thresholds were met in this instance,” said Ben Smith, Google Vice President of Engineering, in Google blog post.
A memo to a senior executive from inside Google triggered more public spotlight. The memo warned that the company might face embarrassment if the security vulnerability made public as happened to Facebook this year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai might highly likely be summoned to the Congress to testify. Meanwhile, Google spokesman Rob Shilkin refuted the saying and that Google planned to disclose the issue later this week before learned the article from The Wall Street Journal.
ERWIN PRIMA | NEW YORK TIMES | WSJ | NEWSWEEK | GOOGLE