Apple, Mac, MacOS, iOS4, iPad, iPhone and (in)security...

Another day, another patch to install. This time, it's iOS 11.2.2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Must read: How to tell if your iPhone battery needs replacing

The patch is to fix the Spectre vulnerability that came to light earlier this month.

Apple describes the patch as follows:

iOS 11.2.2 includes security improvements to Safari and WebKit to mitigate the effects of Spectre (CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5715).
Apple says it "recommends" the update "for all users."

To download the update, go to Settings > General > Software Update (the preferred way, and this way the patch is only about 75MB), or connect your iPhone to a computer running iTunes and then carry out the update (this is slower and downloads the entire iOS 11.2.2 package, which is several gigabytes, as opposed to just the smaller update).

Learn more / en savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/apple-mac-ios4-ipad-iphone-and-in-security

Apple just released iOS 11.2.2 with some Safari and WebKit improvements to mitigate the Spectre vulnerability. macOS is also receiving an update. It’s a supplemental update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 and it includes the same fix.

As always, you should update your devices with the latest security patches. In this case, Meltdown and Spectre are serious vulnerabilities. With Meltdown, a malicious application running on an unpatched device can read the unencrypted kernel memory. You don’t want anyone to grab your password and private encryption keys.

Meltdown was already addressed in previous updates. iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2 and tvOS 11.2 already included mitigations for Meltdown. Apple Watch chips aren’t affected by Meltdown.

Spectre isn’t as serious as it only breaks the isolation between multiple applications. But it can be exploited using JavaScript in a web browser. That’s why it’s important to fix it before somebody figures out how to distribute malicious JavaScript code in an ad unit.

On your iPhone or iPad, head over to the Settings app, then tap on General and Software Update. On your Mac, open the Mac App Store and check for updates.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/apple-mac-ios4-ipad-iphone-and-in-security/?&tag=LPE+Exploit

https://www.scoop.it/t/apple-mac-ios4-ipad-iphone-and-in-security