Apple Warns of 3 iOS Zero-Day Security Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Wild
Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →
| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Flags | Affected | Exposure | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2021-1782 | Race Condition Privilege Escalation in Apple iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS A race condition caused by improper locking (CWE-667) in Apple's operating systems could allow local privilege escalation. The flaw is triggered by a malicious application already running on the device that exploits a timing race; exploitation requires only low local privileges and no user interaction, though the attack complexity is rated high. A successful attacker gains elevated privileges with high impact to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the device. Users of iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV running versions earlier than iOS/iPadOS 14.4, macOS Big Sur 11.2 (or the 2021-001 security updates for Catalina and Mojave), watchOS 7.3, and tvOS 14.4 are affected. Apple reported the issue as actively exploited in the wild, CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03, and no public proof-of-concept is known. Do: Upgrade to iOS/iPadOS 14.4, watchOS 7.3, and tvOS 14.4; on Macs, upgrade to macOS Big Sur 11.2 or apply Security Update 2021-001 for Catalina and Mojave. As an interim mitigation, avoid installing untrusted applications, since exploitation requires a malicious local app. This vulnerability is in the CISA KEV catalog, so organizations subject to the required action should verify that all managed Apple devices are running the patched versions. | 7.0 | 2% | KEV |
| masshundreds of millions of Apple devices (estimate based on Apple's active installed base exceeding 1 billion devices) | |
| CVE-2021-1870 +1 in the same advisory: …1871 | WebKit Logic Flaw Enables Remote Code Execution on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS CVE-2021-1870 is a logic flaw in Apple's WebKit browser engine, addressed in iOS 14.4, iPadOS 14.4, macOS Big Sur 11.2, and Security Update 2021-001 for Catalina and Mojave via improved restrictions. A remote attacker can trigger the flaw through hostile web content processed by WebKit on a vulnerable device, with no authentication or privileges required per the CVSS 3.1 network-vector scoring. Successful exploitation allows arbitrary code execution on the affected device. All users of iPhone OS/iPadOS prior to 14.4 and macOS prior to the listed fixes are affected, as WebKit ships with every Apple device, and WebKitGTK/Fedora users of the same engine are also potentially impacted. Apple reported the issue may have been actively exploited in the wild as a zero-day, and CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Do: Upgrade iPhones/iPads to iOS/iPadOS 14.4, Macs to macOS Big Sur 11.2, and apply Security Update 2021-001 on Catalina and Mojave. Fedora/WebKitGTK users should install the distribution's updated WebKitGTK packages. The issue is on the CISA KEV list with a required action of applying vendor updates; no public PoC or specific mitigation is known, so patching is the primary remediation. | 9.8 | 8% | KEV |
| masson the order of 1+ billion Apple devices (WebKit ships in every iPhone, iPad, and Mac) |
Full article328 words · extracted from thehackernews.com · click to collapse
Ravie LakshmananJan 27, 2021
Apple on Tuesday released updates for iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS with fixes for three security vulnerabilities that it says may have been actively exploited in the wild.
Reported by an anonymous researcher, the three zero-day flaws — CVE-2021-1782, CVE-2021-1870, and CVE-2021-1871 — could have allowed an attacker to elevate privileges and achieve remote code execution.
The iPhone maker did not disclose how widespread the attack was or reveal the identities of the attackers actively exploiting them.
While the privilege escalation bug in the kernel (CVE-2021-1782) was noted as a race condition that could cause a malicious application to elevate its privileges, the other two shortcomings — dubbed a "logic issue" — were discovered in the WebKit browser engine (CVE-2021-1870 and CVE-2021-1871), permitting an attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution inside Safari.
Apple said the race condition and the WebKit flaws were addressed with improved locking and restrictions, respectively.
While exact details of the exploit leveraging the flaws are unlikely to be made public until the patches have been widely applied, it wouldn't be a surprise if they were chained together to carry out watering hole attacks against potential targets.
Such an attack would involve delivering the malicious code simply by visiting a compromised website that then takes advantage of the aforementioned vulnerabilities to escalate its privileges and run arbitrary commands to take control of the device.
The updates are now available for iPhone 6s and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch (7th generation), as well as Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD.
News of the latest zero-days comes after the company resolved three actively exploited vulnerabilities in November 2020 and a separate zero-day bug in iOS 13.5.1 that was disclosed as used in a cyberespionage campaign targeting Al Jazeera journalists last year.
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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/apple-warns-of-3-ios-zero-day-security.html