This week, Google has finally admitted there was a security breach in Google Plus. It is quite surprising that it took Google almost 3 years to answer for the glitch, and the fact that it was affecting the social media feature of the company for years. In the data breach, according to the company, no…
This week, Google has finally admitted there was a security breach in Google Plus. It is quite surprising that it took Google almost 3 years to answer for the glitch, and the fact that it was affecting the social media feature of the company for years. In the data breach, according to the company, no pictures have been leaked. Only ages, gender, occupation, email IDs, and names have been disclosed. Google did not share the news of the breach before because it feared regulatory hurdles. Also, since the company had already patched the breach post-discovery they felt no need to alarm the public unnecessarily.
There are 9 things that every Google Plus user should be aware of regarding the Google Plus glitch:
1. The Google Plus breach happened because of a software glitch. This flaw was revealed to be in the Alphabet product. This unveiled user profiles of thousands of Google Plus users to third-party developers.
2. According to reports, the breach went unnoticed for about three years.
3. The glitch was finally discovered a few months ago.
4. Google had been keeping the Google Plus breach under wraps because it did not want regulatory authorities breathing down its necks.
5. The company didn’t see the necessity of sharing the data concerning the bug since it had already patched the glitch till then. Also, the company claims, there was no evidence that the leaked data was used maliciously.
6. Because of the glitch, the company is as of now shutting down the consumer functionality of Google Plus.
7. This action of Google is instigating Alphabet to close down the social network.
Alphabet Inc . is Google and several of the firm’s parent company that was formed on October 2,2015 during a restructuring of Google.
8. The leaked data included users private information like age, gender, occupation, email address, and name. No images were leaked during the breach.
9. Google Plus was launched in 2011 to compete with social media giants Facebook and Twitter. It failed spectacularly in that endeavour considering the scope of its reach and the number of people who use the platform is far above the number of Google Plus users.
Following the breaking of the news about Google Plus data breach, the financials of the company were affected. On Monday, the GOOG shares fell approximately 0.9% while by late afternoon shares almost slipped by 1.1%.
Since Google failed to report such a huge data breach affecting thousands of Google Plus users, Alphabet Inc is currently shutting down Google Plus for customers.
