Apple has released iOS 15.3 and Monterey 12.2 which resolve a bundle of security vulnerabilities including a pair of Zero-day exploits

iOS patches

iOS 15.3 and iPadOS 15.3 (released on 26th January 2022) contain fixes for a total of 10 security vulnerabilities including CVE-2022-22587. Apple advises that they are ‘aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.’  The IOMobileFrameBuffer can be attacked with malicious input in order to cause a memory corruption leading to arbitrary code execution with kernel privileges.

This bug can be exploited on the following Apple devices:

Phone 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)

Also fixed is a bug in the Crash Reporter that could allow a malicious application to gain root privileges on the device

MacOS Monterey patches

The commonality between the Mac and iPhone operating systems means that many of the iOS vulnerabilities also affect the Mac including the IOMobileFrameBuffer zero-day vulnerability. 13 vulnerabilities are fixed in MacOS Monterey 12.2 which was released 26th January 2022.

In addition, a bug in Webkit could allow a malicious website to achieve arbitrary code execution on the Mac due to a use after free vulnerability (CVE-2022-22590)

Also fixed is a bug in Safari WebKit that was disclosed on 14^th January. This could allow a website to track sensitive user information (CVE-2022-22594). A flaw in the design of the IndexedDB API which browsers use to store information on the users’ device meant a website could identify any other websites the user has visited if any form of cookie or data had been saved into the browser’s local cache.  This violation of the same-origin policy could allow users to be tracked and even identify usernames associated with visited websites.

iOS 15.3 and Monterey 12.2 are available as free updates from Apple via the built-in Software Update utility.