Apple Patches Zero-Day Vulnerability That Could Let iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks Get Hacked

The first zero-day vulnerability is tracked under the code CVE-2022-22587. This is a memory corruption bug in IOMobileFrameBuffer that affects iOS, iPadOS, and macOS Monterey.

When successfully exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker can execute arbitrary code with kernet privileges on the victim's device.

"Apple has received notice that this vulnerability is being actively exploited by hackers," Apple said.

Below is a list of devices affected by CVE-2022-22587:

1. iPhone 6s and up
2. iPad Pro (all models)
3. iPad 5th generation or later
4. iPad mini 4 or later and iPod touch (7th generation)
5. Devices running macOS Monterey

The vulnerability was found by an anonymous security researcher, MBition - Mercedes-Benz Innovation Lab researcher Meysam Firouzi and researcher Siddharth Aeri.

Both Firouzi and Aeri shared that they found this vulnerability based on independent research, not knowing that hackers are actively exploiting it.

The second zero-day vulnerability is a Safari WebKit bug in iOS and iPadOS that allows websites to track a user's surfing activity and a user's identity in real time.

The vulnerability was reported to Apple by Martin Bajanik of FingerprintJS on November 28, 2021 and made public on January 14, 2022. After the researcher revealed it, it was assigned the code CVE-2022-22594 and patched in the newly released iOS 15.3 and iPadOS 15.3 update.

These are the first zero-day vulnerabilities to be patched by Apple in 2022.

Micah Soto

Update 27 January 2022