Google shutters the Google+ social network after Wall Street Journal reports a huge security lapse

Greg Sandoval/Business Insider

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks with reporters at the 2018 I/O conference.

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A software glitch caused Google to expose the personal profile data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users during the past spring and managers there chose not to go public with the information, according to a report Monday in The Wall Street Journal.

In the wake of the publishing of the Journal's story, Google announced late Monday morning that it had closed down the social networking service for consumers.

According to the newspaper, the glitch enabled outside developers to access the data between 2015 and March 2018. The glitch was fixed and Google concluded that nothing nepharious was done with the information.

The Journal reporteras wrote that they reviewed a memo prepared by Google lawyers and policy experts that warned that disclosing the glitch would cause "immediate regulatory interest."

They also noted that it would trigger comparisons with Facebook's scandal involving Cambridge Analystica. Google CEO Sundar Pichai was brief on the plan after the decision not to inform the public was made, according to the Journal's sources.

This story is developing...

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