Apple on Monday shipped the long-awaited iOS and iPadOS 14.5 update with patches for at least 50 documented security vulnerabilities.
The patch, which is currently being rolled out via iOS and iPadOS automatic-updating mechanism, includes cover for a WebKit vulnerability that Apple believes may have been exploited in the wild by attackers.
According to Apple, the most serious of the 50 documented flaws (CVE-2021-30661) is a use-after-free memory corruption bug in WebKit Storage.
[ RELATED: Apple Patches Under-Attack iOS Zero-Day ]
“Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.,” the Cupertino, Calif. company said in an advisory.
The company did not provide any additional details on the report of active exploitation beyond a one-line acknowledging a researcher from a Chinese security research lab for the discovery.
The iOS and iPadOS 14.5 rollout also fixes multiple high-risk “arbitrary code execution” vulnerabilities across a range of mobile operating system components, including bugs in FontParser and ImageIO.
An interesting observation from this mega-patch release is the volume of vulnerabilities reported by researchers attached to Chinese companies and security research labs.
Related: Zerodium Expects iOS Exploit Prices to Drop Due to Surplus
Related: Apple Ships Emergency Fixes for Under-Attack iOS Zero-Day
Ryan Naraine is Editor-at-Large at SecurityWeek and host of the popular Security Conversations podcast series. He is a security community engagement expert who has built programs at major global brands, including Intel Corp., Bishop Fox and GReAT. Ryan is a founding-director of the Security Tinkerers non-profit, an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, and a regular speaker at security conferences around the world.
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