Apple Rolls Out Urgent Patches for Zero-Day Flaws Impacting iPhones, iPads and Macs

10 months ago AndyC

Jul 25, 2023THNEndpoint Security / Zero Day

Apple has rolled out security updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and Safari to address several security vulnerabilities, including one actively exploited zero-day bug in the wild.

Jul 25, 2023THNEndpoint Security / Zero Day

Apple Rolls Out Urgent Patches for Zero-Day Flaws Impacting iPhones, iPads and Macs

Apple has rolled out security updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and Safari to address several security vulnerabilities, including one actively exploited zero-day bug in the wild.

Tracked as CVE-2023-38606, the shortcoming resides in the kernel and permits a malicious app to modify sensitive kernel state potentially. The company said it was addressed with improved state management.

“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS released before iOS 15.7.1,” the tech giant noted in its advisory.

It’s worth noting that CVE-2023-38606 is the third security vulnerability discovered in connection with Operation Triangulation, a sophisticated mobile cyber espionage campaign targeting iOS devices since 2019 using a zero-click exploit chain. The other two zero-days, CVE-2023-32434 and CVE-2023-32435, were patched by Apple last month.

Kaspersky researchers Valentin Pashkov, Mikhail Vinogradov, Georgy Kucherin, Leonid Bezvershenko, and Boris Larin have been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw.

The updates are available for the following devices and operating systems –

iOS 16.6 and iPadOS 16.6 – iPhone 8 and later, iPad Pro (all models), iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later
iOS 15.7.8 and iPadOS 15.7.8 – iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation)
macOS Ventura 13.5, macOS Monterey 12.6.8, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.9
tvOS 16.6 – Apple TV 4K (all models) and Apple TV HD, and
watchOS 9.6 – Apple Watch Series 4 and later

With the latest round of patches, Apple has resolved a total of 11 zero-days impacting its software since the start of 2023. It also comes two weeks after the company published emergency fixes for a remote code execution bug in WebKit that could lead to arbitrary code execution (CVE-2023-37450).

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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