SingCERT Urges Apple Users to Update Their Devices to Fix ‘Critical Vulnerability’

The government’s cybersecurity response team is urging Apple users to update their iPhones and Mac computers immediately to fix a critical vulnerability, which could make their devices open to attacks.

“Apple has released security updates to fix a zero-day critical vulnerability (CVE-2022-32917) found in their products,” the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT) said in an updated statement on Wednesday, Sept. 14.

If hackers were to become successful at exploiting this critical vulnerability, it could allow them “to enable maliciously written programs to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.” A kernel is the core of a device’s operating system, which is responsible for resource allocation, file management, and security.

SingCERT advises to patch the operating system (OS) of Apple devices to the latest versions:

• Safari 16 web browser – For macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey
• macOS Monterey 12.6 – For macOS Monterey
• macOS Big Sur 11.7 – For macOS Big Sur
• iOS 16 – For iPhone 8 and later
• iOS 15.7 and iPad OS 15.7 – For iPhone 6s and later, iPad Pro (all models), iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch (7th generation)

They also urge users to enable automatic software updates by going to Settings > General > Software Updates > Enable Automatic Updates.