Apple Inc. plans to release a patch after the cybersecurity company ZecOps Inc. found vulnerabilities that may have allowed hackers to exploit iPhones, devices used by hundreds of millions of people.
San Francisco-based ZecOps discovered two ¡°exploitable vulnerabilities¡± in Apple¡¯s mail app and alerted the company, which released a beta update this month. The company confirmed that a full update is forthcoming to fix the bug.
The vulnerability can be exploited when a specially crafted email is opened on the mail app by an iPhone or an iPad, said Zuk Avraham, the founder and chief executive officer of ZecOps.
ZecOps has ¡°high confidence¡± that the flaws may have been used in attacks conducted by ¡°an advanced threat operator,¡± according to a Wednesday report by the company. Among the victims were ¡°individuals from a Fortune 500 organization in North America¡± and ¡°an executive from a carrier in Japan,¡± as well as ¡°a journalist in Europe,¡± the report said.
The vulnerabilities may have been exploited by attackers since January 2018, according to ZecOps. The bugs were disclosed publicly when Apple issued the beta update, and attackers ¡°will likely use the time until a patch is available to attack as many devices as possible,¡± ZecOps predicted in the report.
Users can protect themselves by applying the beta patch, or avoiding the mail app and temporarily switching to alternatives that aren¡¯t vulnerable to the bugs, ZecOps said in the report.
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