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Apple patches Image I/O zero-day exploited in targeted attacks

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📰 3 unique sources, 6 articles

Summary

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Apple has released emergency updates to fix a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-43300) in the Image I/O framework. The flaw, an out-of-bounds write issue, was exploited in "extremely sophisticated" targeted attacks against specific individuals. The vulnerability affects multiple iOS, iPadOS, and macOS versions and devices. Apple has not attributed the discovery to a specific researcher or provided details about the attacks. The flaw allows attackers to exploit the vulnerability by supplying malicious input, potentially leading to remote code execution. Affected devices include various iPhone, iPad, and Mac models running specific versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The flaw was discovered internally by Apple and addressed with improved bounds checking. The vulnerability has been exploited as part of highly targeted attacks. Users are advised to install the updates promptly to mitigate potential ongoing attacks. CERT-FR has reported at least four instances of Apple threat notifications alerting users about mercenary spyware attacks since the beginning of the year. The attacks target individuals based on their status or function, including journalists, lawyers, activists, politicians, and senior officials. Apple has sent threat notifications to users in over 150 countries since 2021. Apple has backported fixes for the vulnerability to older versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, including iOS 16.7.12, iPadOS 16.7.12, iOS 15.8.5, and iPadOS 15.8.5. The updates also address multiple other security flaws in various Apple products. The flaw was chained with a WhatsApp zero-click vulnerability (CVE-2025-55177) in targeted attacks. The attacks were described as "extremely sophisticated" by Apple and WhatsApp. Samsung also patched a remote code execution vulnerability chained with the CVE-2025-55177 WhatsApp flaw in zero-day attacks targeting its Android devices.

Timeline

  1. 16.09.2025 14:06 📰 2 articles · ⏱ 1d ago

    Apple backports fixes for CVE-2025-43300 to older iOS, iPadOS, and macOS versions

    The flaw was chained with a WhatsApp zero-click vulnerability (CVE-2025-55177) in targeted attacks. The attacks were described as "extremely sophisticated" by Apple and WhatsApp. Samsung also patched a remote code execution vulnerability chained with the CVE-2025-55177 WhatsApp flaw in zero-day attacks targeting its Android devices.

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  2. 11.09.2025 22:02 📰 1 articles · ⏱ 5d ago

    CERT-FR reports multiple spyware attacks targeting Apple users

    CERT-FR has reported at least four instances of Apple threat notifications alerting users about mercenary spyware attacks since the beginning of the year. The notifications were sent on March 5, April 29, June 25, and September 3. The attacks target individuals based on their status or function, including journalists, lawyers, activists, politicians, and senior officials. Apple has sent threat notifications to users in over 150 countries since 2021. Apple advises users to enable Lockdown Mode and request rapid-response emergency security assistance.

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  3. 20.08.2025 21:44 📰 6 articles · ⏱ 27d ago

    Apple patches Image I/O zero-day flaw exploited in targeted attacks

    The flaw affects iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone SE (1st generation), iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), iPad 5th generation, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 1st generation, and iPod touch (7th generation).

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