Indian Government Issues ‘High’ Severity Warning for iPhone, iPad Users

The Central government has issued a “High” severity warning for Apple products such as iPhones and iPads.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, stated: “A vulnerability in Apple’s iOS and iPadOS may allow certain malicious applications to cause affected devices to become unresponsive or nonfunctional until restored.”

The government’s security advisory flagged vulnerabilities in Apple software, specifically:

• iOS versions prior to 18.3 (for iPhone XS and later)

• iPadOS versions prior to 17.7.3 (for iPad Pro 12.9-inch 2nd generation, iPad Pro 10.5-inch, and iPad 6th generation)

• iPadOS versions prior to 18.3 (for iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later)

According to CERT-In, the vulnerability arises due to the fact that any iOS application can transmit sensitive system-level Darwin notifications without needing special privileges or entitlements.

“Darwin notifications are a low-level messaging system within the CoreOS layer, enabling processes to broadcast and receive system-wide event notifications,” explained CERT-In.

CERT-In has advised users to apply the necessary updates provided in Apple’s security advisory.