Google Plus will be shut down after private data of 500,000 users was exposed

According to a report, Google had discovered a “software glitch” earlier this year that allowed third-party developers to access 500,000 private profile data since 2015. The data the were accessible included “full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status.”

What’s even worse is that Google found out about this breach earlier in March 2018 and decided not to disclose the breach in public.

What is Google doing about this?

Google has announced that it will be shutting down Google Plus for consumers between now and August due to “significant challenges” to maintaining a social network

Google also said that it had found no evidence that outside developers were aware of the security flaw and no indication that any user profiles were touched. The flaw was fixed in an update made in March.

Besides this, Google is also implementing several additional security features for its services which includes:

• Limiting the types of apps that are permitted to access Gmail
• Limiting apps’ ability to receive Call Log and SMS permissions on Android devices
• No longer making contact interaction data available via the Android Contacts API.