Update your iPhone and Mac now - Apple has fixed two major security bugs

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Both zero-day bugs can be used to run malicious code against iPhone and Macs

Tourists swarm outside the Apple Store on Nanjing Road pedestrian street in Shanghai, China, April 5, 2023.
(Image credit: Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Apple has released a fix for two high-severity vulnerabilities found in iPhone and Mac devices, with users urged to update their devices immediately.

The flaws are tracked as CVE-2023-41064, and CVE-2023-41061. The former is a buffer overflow weakness and can enable arbitrary code execution on vulnerable endpoints. The latter is a validation issue that threat actors can use for the same goal - arbitrary code execution via malicious attachments. 

The two flaws were found in a wide array of Apple’s devices, including all phones from iPhone 8 onward, all iPad Pro models, iPad Air 3rd generation and newer, iPad 5th generation and newer, and iPad mini 5th generation and newer. The flaw also affects Macs powered by macOS Ventura, and Apple Watch Series 4 and newer.

Active exploit

The patch brings macOS Ventura to version 13.5.2, iOS to version 16.6.1, iPadOS to 16.6.1, and watchOS to 9.6.2, so if you’re worried about the flaws, make sure your OS runs these versions. The flaws are being actively abused in the wild, so make sure to apply the patch as soon as you can. 

"Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited," the Cupertino giant said in its security advisory. 

While Apple did not detail who used the flaws and in which campaigns, BleepingComputer cited Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity company claiming the flaws were part of a zero-click iMessage exploit chain named BLASTPASS. The goal of this campaign was to deliver Pegasus, an infamous commercial spyware developed by the now-blacklisted Israeli-based NSO Group. A zero-click attack is just as it sounds - it requires no activity from the victim’s side, making it extremely dangerous.

Apple has been keeping busy this year, with a total of 13 zero-day vulnerabilities having been addressed this year, already. In late July this year, Apple urged its users to apply an emergency update that plugged a hole made by the CVE-2023-38606.

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Via: BleepingComputer

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Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.