Google+ shutdown accelerates after bug discovered

Google has announced that it will accelerate the closure of all Google+ APIs to April 2019, after discovering that the personal information of 52.5 million of its customers was affected by a security flaw present in a November 2018 update.

Due to this failure, some developers, applications and external agents were able to access the personal information of these users, even if they had their profile configured as private. This information includes name, gender, skills, birthday, email address, occupation, age and the complete list of contacts with their respective email addresses and names.

The company discovered and corrected the bug within a week and claims that no third party has compromised its systems, and there is no evidence that application developers who had access for six days were aware of it or misused it.

Google will inform affected users, including some business customers, to take action and be alert for any unusual activity in their other social profiles.

[Update 31/01/2019] Google has published a blog in which it gives details of how the closing process will be, depending on the affected public (Google+ users, G Suite users and administrators, and developers using Google+ APIs).