Security bug brings Google+’s death forward by four months

Google+, the company’s social network, will be killed off sooner than initially planned, after a security-threatening bug reared its ugly head last month.

“We’ve recently determined that some users were impacted by a software update introduced in November that contained a bug affecting a Google+ API,” the company confirmed in an announcement.

“No third party compromised our systems, and we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way,” it claimed.

Due to this issue, the social network for consumers will be shuttered in April 2019, four months earlier than previously expected.

The network’s APIs will also be shut down over the next three months.

According to Google, the bug affected some 52.5-million users and left users’ profile information vulnerable to prying eyes.

“The bug did not give developers access to information such as financial data, national identification numbers, passwords, or similar data typically used for fraud or identity theft,” the company further noted.

Google confirmed that it’s notifying the customers who have been affected.

Feature image: screenshot, Google