Apple has said it will contribute funds to the education of Grant Thompson, aged 14, after he helped uncover a serious issue in the firm’s FaceTime software. Apple patched the issue on Thursday in the iOS 12.1.4 patch and even cited the boy in the release notes, writing “CVE-2019-6223: Grant Thompson of Catalina Foothills High School”.
Apple didn’t reveal exactly how much it was paying into Thompson’s fund but a bug bounty program Apple launched in 2016 pays out between $25,000 and $200,000. According to Reuters, Apple said it would pay compensation to the family, and make a gift donation towards Grant’s education, so it could come to a decent amount that the family receives.
iOS 12.1.4 is available now for anyone with an iPhone 5s or later, iPad Air or later, and the iPod Touch 6th generation. In addition to the bug Grant Thompson reported, FaceTime also received a patch for an issue involving Live Photos following a security audit. There’s also a fix for IOKit which previously allowed apps to execute code with kernel privileges, and a Foundation fix that stopped apps from being able to get elevated privileges.
Source: Reuters
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