Google+ to shut down following hacking revelation

Google has announced that it is to terminate its idea of a social media app, Google+, in 2019. On the other hand, the company intends to keep a form of the app alive for professional customers. The search company claims that this decision has been taken in response to increasingly poor use and uptake of Google+ among individuals. However, it might also have to do with a potentially large-scale vulnerability in the app's API that may have put many profiles at risk.

It now appears that this possible breach had only been identified and patched in March 2018. It was based on a weakness in the Google+ API that may have made some entries in its Profile data fields visible to a hacker. They included the user's age, email address, gender, name and occupation. This data may have been available from users who took the option to share this information with friends on Google+

In all, Google now admits that this hack may have affected about 500,000 profiles. On the other hand, the company also asserts that there is no evidence that any developer exploited the deficiency in the API. Google has decided to address the issue by shutting the entire app down as part of a new 10-month project called Strobe. In the meantime, users could also secure their accounts through measures such as changing their Google account passwords.

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