CERT-In warns Apple device users about severe vulnerabilities

The security experts have identified some severe vulnerabilities in some very popular Apple products that will help hackers to take control of the devices and use data obtained from these devices for rather nefarious activities.

(Indian Computer Emergency Response Team), the central cyber security body of India, has cautioned about some severe vulnerabilities in the Apple Watch, few versions of Macs, iPhones and iPad also.

CERT-In has issued warnings about a number of vulnerabilities in Mac operating systems and the vulnerabilities were classified as ‘critical’, which is the most serious rating in cyber security parlance.

“Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in the Apple Mac OS which could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, bypass security restrictions and cause a denial of service conditions on the targeted system,” the advisory stated.

The device maker has come up with patches for both the vulnerabilities, which can be installed by downloading the latest updates to the products. However, what makes the matter even more serious is that, by Apple's own admission, these vulnerabilities might have already been exploited by hackers.

“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited,” Apple said in a statement regarding the two vulnerabilities on its official website.

Apple devices running iOS & iPadOS versions prior to 15.5 have been rated highly severe. MacOS Catalina prior to security update 2022-004, versions of macOS Big Sur prior to 11.6.6, and versions of macOS Monterey prior to 12.4 have been rated critically severe.

As for the Apple Watch, any device running watchOS versions prior to watchOS 8.6 is highly severe. Users who are using older versions of these OS should update their devices as soon as they can. If updating the device isn’t an option, then remove all sensitive, and critical data from these devices.