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Apple Ships Emergency Fixes for Under-Attack iOS Zero-Day

iOS Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Wild

iOS Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Wild

Apple on Tuesday dropped emergency security patches for its flagship iOS and iPad OS platforms alongside a warning that hackers may already be exploiting three different security vulnerabilities.

The patches — contained in iOS 14.4 and iPadOS 14.4 — are currently being pushed to mobile users via the automatic updating mechanism.  

Apple did not provide technical details of the vulnerabilities or the in-the-wild attacks, except to identify the flaws in the Kernel and in WebKit, the open-source web browser engine used in Safari, Mail, AppStore and a range of MacOS and iOS apps.

Here are the bare-bones details from Apple:

CVE-2021-1782 (Kernel)  — Impact: A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.  Available for: iPhone 6s and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch (7th generation).  Anonymously reported.

CVE-2021-1871 and CVE-2021-1870 (WebKit) —  Impact: A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.  Available for: iPhone 6s and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch (7th generation).   Reported by anonymous researchers.

Apple has promised additional details will be available soon.

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Related: Zerodium Expects iOS Exploit Prices to Drop as It Announces Surplus

Related: Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in iOS Mail App Exploited in Targeted Attacks

Written By

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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