The iPhone 15 arrives on Friday, and if you’ve preordered one, you’re counting down the minutes until it lands on your doorstep. But before you check out the new camera and toss all of your old Lightning cables, you’ll want to take a trip to the Settings app.
Just days after iOS 17 arrived for all compatible iPhones, Apple has released iOS 17.0.1 and iPadOS 17.0.1 for iPhone 14 and earlier and iOS 17.0.2 for iPhone 15 models. It’s not clear exactly what’s in the update, as Apple’s release notes only say it includes “bug fixes and important security updates for iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models.” What we do know is the update includes three zero-day security patches that “may have been actively exploited”:
Kernel
- Impact: A local attacker may be able to elevate their privileges. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.
- Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.
- CVE-2023-41992: Bill Marczak of The Citizen Lab at The University of Toronto’s Munk School and Maddie Stone of Google’s Threat Analysis Group
Security
- Impact: A malicious app may be able to bypass signature validation. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.
- Description: A certificate validation issue was addressed.
- CVE-2023-41991: Bill Marczak of The Citizen Lab at The University of Toronto’s Munk School and Maddie Stone of Google’s Threat Analysis Group
WebKit
- Impact: Processing web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.
- Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.
- CVE-2023-41993: Bill Marczak of The Citizen Lab at The University of Toronto’s Munk School and Maddie Stone of Google’s Threat Analysis Group
Last year, the iPhone 14 also got an iOS 16.0.1 day one update to address “an issue that may cause some photos to appear soft when zooming in landscape orientation on iPhone 14 Pro Max.” However, the first general update didn’t arrive until a week later.
To update your iPhone, head over to the Settings app, then General > Software Update, and tap Update Now.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.