Apple iPhone and iPad users, here’s why you should install the latest update on your devices

Apple has recently rolled out the latest iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 updates for iPhones and iPads. Soon after the rollout, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), a nodal agency under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology responsible for highlighting bugs and cybersecurity threats like phishing and hacking, issued a new warning for select iPhone and iPad users.

The government body has highlighted that they have found several new vulnerabilities in some versions of Apple iOS and Apple iPadOS operating systems. These vulnerabilities, according to the report, have high-severity risk which when exploited by attackers can give access to sensitive information, execute arbitrary code, spoof the UI, gain elevated privileges, bypass security restrictions or cause a denial of service conditions on the targeted system.

Users who are affected by these vulnerabilitiesHere’s the list of operating system versions and devices that are affected by these vulnerabilities.

Apple iOS and iPadOS versions prior to 16.2

• iPhone 8 and later
• iPad Pro (all models)
• iPad Air 3rd generation and later
• iPad 5th generation and later
• iPad mini 5th generation and later

Apple iOS and iPadOS versions prior to 15.7.2

• iPhone 6s (all models)
• iPhone 7 (all models)
• iPhone SE (1st generation)
• iPad Pro (all models)
• iPad Air 2 and later
• iPad 5th generation and later
• iPad mini 4 and later
• iPod touch (7th generation)

What government has said about these vulnerabilitiesAccording to CERT-In’s report, these vulnerabilities exist in both the operating system’s in the accounts, AppleMobileFileIntegrity, CoreServices, GPU Drivers, Graphics Driver, ImageIO, IOHIDFamily, IOMobileFrameBuffer, Kernel, Photos, Preferences, Printing, Software Update, Weather, AppleAVD, AVEVideoEncoder, File System, WebKit, iTunes Store, libxml2, ppp, Safari components of Apple iOS and iPadOS.

The government body has also mentioned that “Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow the attacker gain access to sensitive information, execute arbitrary code, spoof the UI, gain elevated privileges, bypass security restrictions or cause a denial of service conditions on the targeted system”.

SolutionAs per the report, users will have to apply appropriate software updates as mentioned in Apple Security Updates. Basically, the government wants to you install iOS 16.2 or iPadOS 16.2 on your respective devices which carries the fix for these vulnerabilities.