Apple Issues Urgent Patch Update for Another Zero‑Day Under Attack

Mar 27, 2021

Merely weeks after releasing out-of-band patches for iOS,
iPadOS, macOS and watchOS, Apple has released yet another security
update for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch to fix a critical zero-day
weakness that it says is being actively exploited in the wild.

Tracked as CVE-2021-1879, the vulnerability relates to a
WebKit flaw that could enable adversaries to process maliciously
crafted web content that may result in universal cross-site
scripting attacks.

“This issue was addressed by improved management of object
lifetimes,” the iPhone maker noted.

Apple has credited Clement Lecigne and Billy Leonard of Google’s
Threat Analysis Group for discovering and reporting the issue.
While details of the flaw have not been disclosed, the company said
it’s aware of reports that CVE-2021-1879 may have been actively
exploited.

Updates are available for the following devices:

iOS 12.5.2 ^[1]
– Phone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad
mini 3, and iPod touch (6th generation)
iOS 14.4.2 ^[2]
– iPhone 6s and later, and iPod touch (7th generation)
iPadOS 14.4.2 ^[3]
– iPad Pro (all models), iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation
and later, iPad mini 4 and later
watchOS 7.3.3 ^[4]
– Apple Watch Series 3 and later

The latest release arrives close on the heels of a patch for a
separate WebKit flaw (CVE-2021-1844 ^[5]) that Apple shipped
earlier this month. In January 2021, the company resolved three zero-day vulnerabilities ^[6] (CVE-2021-1782,
CVE-2021-1870, and CVE-2021-1871) that allowed an attacker to
elevate privileges and achieve remote code execution.

Interestingly, Apple also appears to be experimenting ^[7]
with ways to deliver security updates on iOS in a manner that’s
independent of other OS updates. iOS 14.4.2 certainly sounds like
the kind of update that could benefit from this feature.

In the meanwhile, users of Apple devices are advised to install
the updates as soon as possible to mitigate the risk associated
with the flaw.

References

^{^}
iOS
12.5.2 (support.apple.com)
^{^}
iOS
14.4.2 (support.apple.com)
^{^}
iPadOS
14.4.2 (support.apple.com)
^{^}
watchOS
7.3.3 (support.apple.com)
^{^}
CVE-2021-1844
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
three
zero-day vulnerabilities
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
experimenting
(thehackernews.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Apple Issues Urgent Patch Update for Another Zero‑Day Under Attack

References

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