In today’s digital landscape, cybercriminals are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to breach the security of your mobile phone. With the increasing reliance on smartphones for various activities such as communication, financial transactions, and storing sensitive data, these devices have become prime targets for hackers. Whether it’s through phishing scams, malicious apps, or exploiting vulnerabilities, cybercriminals employ various tactics to gain unauthorised access to your phone.
TechSpot reports that Apple is strongly advising iPhone and iPad users to promptly install iOS 16.5 and iPadOS 16.5 in order to address three recently discovered zero-day vulnerabilities.
What is zero-day vulnerabilities? The term “zero-day” is a comprehensive phrase used to describe newly identified security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers to target systems. It signifies that the vendor or developer has just become aware of the flaw, leaving them with “zero days” to fix it. A zero-day attack occurs when hackers take advantage of the vulnerability before developers have an opportunity to resolve it.
These security flaws are specifically connected to the WebKit browser engine and encompass the following issues:
- CVE-2023-32409 – a remote attacker may break out of the Web Content security sandbox
- CVE-2023-28204 – processing web content may disclose sensitive information
- CVE-2023-32373 – processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
The vulnerabilities that have been identified pose an elevated threat to the privacy and confidentiality of users’ data and personal information, as they could potentially be accessed by unauthorised third parties.
Furthermore, these security weaknesses enable malicious individuals to carry out arbitrary code execution attacks, granting them the ability to execute any command or code on a targeted device or system.
Apple deployed the update via the Rapid Security Response system that we have covered earlier this month. By default, the update should be installed and applied automatically.
To check whether you have the system turned on, you can do this:
- On iPhone or iPad: Go to Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates, then make sure that “Security Responses & System Files” is turned on.
