Home technology cyber-security flaws of Google+ draw investigation from German regulatory body

Flaws of Google+ draw investigation from German regulatory body

Cyber Security

CIO Bulletin
2018-10-11

It’s hardly been a day since Google announced the shutdown of Google+ and German data regulators are already behind the company to scrutinize the cybersecurity flaw. The investigation is being done by the office under Johannes Caspar, the commissioner of the country’s data watchdog.

The latest issue with Google+ was where a security bug had exposed hundreds and thousands of personal information. Yes, that reminds us of what had happened on the Facebook platform as well. However, once this bug was discovered in March, Google had silently shut it down, without going public about it.

Although Google says the data wasn’t misused, Caspar and his office are currently investigating on the matter. With such a big exposure, Google has said that it would be shutting down the Google+ platform itself.

The investigation by German regulators is the latest difficulty that Google is facing in Europe. Recently, the European Union had fined the company $5 billion for antitrust violations. Since this incident has occurred before the stringent GDPR protections kicked in, it has limited and restricted terrible consequences. We can only wait and see what the German investigation results in.