Researchers at Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) announced today about a serious vulnerability that they discovered on Instagram in February. Instagram's owner Facebook swiftly repaired the bug after it was reported to them by Check Point. According to Check Point, exploiting the breach could have allowed hackers to seize control of the Instagram user's smartphone.
Check Point said, "After taking remote control of the phone, the hacker could use the telephone device and turn it into a spying device for everything in a way that would give the hacker access to all the data on the device and thew different capabilities on it."
Check Point said that it had informed Facebook about the vulnerability in February and the company had dealt with the problem quickly by updating the security designed to block the breach in the latest version of Instagram.
Check Point added that it had delayed publishing the security breach that it had found because it was a serious vulnerability in a popular app and because the update was not automatic and required users to download it, Check Point said that it waited six months (three months longer than the usual period so that the update and dealing with the breach could be completed), in order to reduce the potential risk generated by the breach.
Facebook partly confirmed these details and said, "We have fixed these issues and haven't seen any evidence of abuse. We are grateful to Check Point for trying to keep Instagram safe."
However, Facebook adds, "Check Point's report overstates a bug, which we fixed quickly and have no reason to believe impacted anyone. Through their own investigation Check Point was unable to successfully exploit this bug."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 24, 2020
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