by Dan Moren
Apple says iOS vulnerabilities in WikiLeaks dump already patched
Writing for BuzzFeed, Sheera Frenkel has an Apple statement about yesterday’s dump, by WikiLeaks, of CIA hacking tools:
But on Tuesday night, Apple released a statement claiming that, as far as they knew, they had patched, or fixed, the bugs allegedly used by the CIA to hack into their products.
“Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers’ privacy and security. The technology built into today’s iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers, and we’re constantly working to keep it that way. Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80 percent of users running the latest version of our operating system. While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities. We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security updates,” read the Apple statement.
However, as BuzzFeed points out, the info dump did not include all the details of the iOS exploits, which could make it difficult for Apple to know for sure that all the vulnerabilities have been patched.
Elsewhere, Motherboard explains that compromising a device like the iPhone generally requires a chain of exploits, so it’s not as simple as one technique leading to game over, man.
As always, the most important thing remains keeping all your devices updated to the latest operating systems in order to have the most current security patches.