A newly released set of security fixes from Apple is “recommended for all users,” meaning that for anyone with an iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch, it’s probably time for an update.
According to Apple, the patch will correct a security bug that left WebKit — the engine that powers Apple’s Safari browser — vulnerable to a memory corruption. Once users visited a web page containing the malicious code, the vulnerability could be exploited by attackers, who could then access the affected device and write malicious code onto it.
If the security fixes are applied, iPhones and iPads users will be updating to iOS and iPadOS 14.4.1, watchOS users would be updating to 7.3.2 and macOS Big Sur would be updating to version 11.2.3.
Despite being reported by Google and Microsoft, the bugs aren’t thought to have been actively exploited — unlike the three separate zero-day security flaws discovered in January. All three of the previous bugs had been “actively exploited,” Apple reported at the time, by hackers who found a way to chain the three vulnerabilities together in order to access the underlying iPhone software.
Apple users can secure their devices by heading to System Preferences, and then clicking on Software Update to check to see if there’s one available.
