Today is an important day to apply security patches to iPhones old and new.
Apple on Tuesday rolled out an urgent software update to fix multiple security flaws in its flagship iOS platform and warned there is evidence of zero-day exploits in the wild.
The Cupertino device maker shipped several mobile OS updates — iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, and iOS 16.7.6 — to cover the security defects and confirmed exploitation in the wild with a terse note: “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited.”
The two exploited vulnerabilities:
- Kernel (CVE-2024-23225) — An attacker with arbitrary kernel read and write capability may be able to bypass kernel memory protections. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited. Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation.
- RTKit (CVE-2024-23296) — An attacker with arbitrary kernel read and write capability may be able to bypass kernel memory protections. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited. A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation.
The company marked the kernel flaw in the ‘exploited’ category on older versions of iOS.
Apple also patched a privacy flaw in the Accessibility feature that could allow apps to read sensitive location information; and a Safari Private Browsing bug that exposed user’s locked tabs while switching tab groups when Locked Private Browsing is enabled.
The company noted that CVEs describing additional vulnerabilities will be added to the advisory later, suggesting multiple more fixes have not yet been documented.
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