Threat actors may have exploited a zero-day in older iPhones, Apple warns

Apple rolled out urgent security updates to address code execution vulnerabilities in iPhones, iPads, and macOS.

Apple released urgent security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities in iPhones, iPads, macOS. The company also warns of a vulnerability patched in March that the company believes may have been exploited as a zero-day.

The issue impacts older iPhone devices, it is tracked as CVE-2024-23296 and is a memory corruption flaw in the RTKit.

The Real-Time Kernel is a component of the operating system responsible for managing and executing tasks with strict timing requirements.

“An attacker with arbitrary kernel read and write capability may be able to bypass kernel memory protections.” reads the advisory published by Cupertino firm. “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited.”

The IT giant fixed the memory corruption bug with improved validation, it released iOS 16.7.8 and iPadOS 16.7.8.

The company also addressed a logic issue, tracked as CVE-2024-27789, in the Foundation framework. The flaw can be exploited by an app to access user-sensitive data.

The flaw was reported by Mickey Jin (@patch1t), the company addressed the vulnerability with improved checks.

Security patches are available for iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPad 5th generation, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, and iPad Pro 12.9-inch 1st generation

Apple released security patches to fix other issues in multiple products. The vulnerabilities fixed by the vendor can lead to arbitrary code execution, privilege escalation, denial-of-service attacks, and unauthorized access to data. 

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, zero-day)