Tens of Vulnerabilities Patched by Apple in macOS and iOS
Apple this week started rolling out security updates for iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Safari, to address tens of vulnerabilities, including some that could result in arbitrary code execution.
A total of 37 security holes were resolved with the release of iOS 14.7 and iPadOS 14.7, including a recently detailed bug that attackers could exploit to crash the Wi-Fi functionality of vulnerable devices.
Tracked as CVE-2021-30800, the security flaw could be exploited by creating a malicious Wi-Fi access point with a specially crafted name. The SSID would be tailored in such a manner that the vulnerable device would process it as if it was a command, thus crashing the Wi-Fi connectivity.
According to security researchers with the ZecOps Mobile EDR Research team, the vulnerability could initially lead to remote code execution, but Apple silently included a patch to prevent code execution in iOS 14.4. However, it could still be exploited to crash the Wi-Fi on devices running iOS 14.0 to iOS 14.6.
Other severe vulnerabilities addressed with the latest iOS release are CVE-2021-30774 (a logic issue in Crash Reporter) and CVE-2021-30780 (an out-of-bounds write in CVMS), both of which could be exploited by malicious applications to gain root privileges, Apple notes in its advisory.
Other security bugs addressed with iOS 14.7 and iPadOS 14.7 could lead to arbitrary code execution, application termination, permission bypass, circumvention of sandbox restrictions, access to restricted data, denial-of-service, bypass of code signing checks or kernel memory mitigations, and information leaks.
This week, Apple also announced security updates for macOS Mojave, macOS Catalina, and macOS Big Sur, to address tens of vulnerabilities, most of which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code. macOS Big Sur received patches for the highest number of vulnerabilities, namely 36.
Apple also announced the release of Safari 14.1.2 this week, which brings patches for three WebKit vulnerabilities affecting macOS Catalina and macOS Mojave, all three leading to code execution.
watchOS and tvOS received security updates as well, to address 21 and 20 vulnerabilities, respectively. Both include patches for the Crash Reporter and CVMS bugs that could allow malicious apps to gain root privileges.
Further information on the security updates that Apple released this week and the vulnerabilities they address can be found on the company’s support portal.
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