A Google Plus breach (NASDAQ:GOOG,NASDAQ:GOOGL) has been reported this week despite the fact that it has been affecting the company’s social media feature for years.
Here are nine things you should know about the Google Plus breach:
- The flaw was reportedly a software glitch within the Alphabet product that unveiled the private profile data of hundreds of thousands of the company’s users to outside developers.
- The glitch was reportedly live for almost three years, according to reports.
- However, the company did not make the Google Plus breach public until now because it feared regulation.
- As a result of the breach, Google is shutting down all consumer functionality of the social network.
- Google Plus has been around since 2011 and it was designed to compete with Facebook and Twitter. It has failed to do so as the other social media sites have a wider reach and more people use them.
- The move is pushing Alphabet to shut down Google Plus.
- The bug was discovered by the company in the spring of 2018.
- Google claims that it didn’t see the need to share data regarding the breach as it had already been patched by then. Plus, the company found no evidence that the bug was used maliciously.
- Data that may have been disclosed includes names, email addresses, occupations, genders and ages, but not other pieces of data such as images.
GOOG stock fell about 0.9% Monday while GOOGL shares slid 1.1% by late afternoon.
