The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has issued a high-severity cybersecurity warning affecting a wide range of Apple products. According to the official vulnerability note CIVN-2025-0071, multiple critical security flaws have been discovered in Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Apple TVs, Safari browser, and Apple Vision Pro headsets. These vulnerabilities, if exploited, could allow attackers to gain unauthorised access, steal sensitive personal or enterprise data, execute arbitrary code, escalate privileges, bypass security mechanisms, and even carry out denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or spoofing attempts.
The affected software versions are widespread. iOS and iPadOS versions earlier than 18.4, 17.7.6, 16.7.11, and 15.8.4 are included in the list. Similarly, macOS Sequoia versions prior to 15.4, Sonoma versions earlier than 14.7.5, and Ventura versions older than 13.7.5 have been flagged as vulnerable. The security issues extend further to tvOS versions before 18.4, Safari browser versions older than 18.4, visionOS versions prior to 2.4, and Xcode versions older than 16.3.
CERT-In's technical report explains that the vulnerabilities arise from multiple issues in Apple's software architecture. These include type confusion errors, where the system mistakenly interprets one type of data as another; use-after-free flaws, in which memory that has already been freed is still accessible; out-of-bounds read and write flaws that give attackers access to unauthorized parts of memory; improper input validation, allowing harmful data to pass through; buffer overflow vulnerabilities; and weaknesses in path handling during file system operations.
These flaws are particularly concerning because they could be exploited either remotely or locally, depending on the specific vulnerability. In many cases, exploitation does not require any user interaction, increasing the potential impact. Devices running unpatched software are at elevated risk of being compromised, potentially leading to serious privacy breaches, financial theft, or complete loss of device control.
The advisory applies not just to individual users but also to organizations and institutions that rely on Apple devices as part of their IT infrastructure. Older devices that have not received updates or systems running outdated versions of software are at the highest risk. The situation reflects ongoing challenges in cybersecurity, particularly for high-profile technology ecosystems like Apple's, which are frequent targets of sophisticated cyberattacks.
The vulnerabilities identified by CERT-In are being tracked by multiple international cybersecurity entities, with ongoing monitoring for potential exploitation in the wild. Industry experts highlight that flaws like use-after-free and type confusion are commonly targeted by advanced persistent threat (APT) groups due to their ability to grant deep control over affected systems. These types of issues have been linked to surveillance campaigns, data exfiltration operations, and remote code execution scenarios in previous high-profile attacks.
The CERT-In report points to a broader pattern of increasing cybersecurity scrutiny around Apple’s closed ecosystem, which, despite its strong reputation for security, has faced a growing number of vulnerability disclosures in recent years. Apple has reportedly issued security patches to address these issues across its product lineup.
