Users of iPhone 8 or later, iPad (5th gen), iPad Air (3rd gen) and iPad mini (5th gen) or later are all required to update their devices right away, which both Apple and CERT-In have explained in their vulnerability notes.
What the iPhone and iPad vulnerabilities signified
According to Apple’s patch notes for its latest iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 updates, as well as the CERT-In advisories, the issues were flagged under CVE-2022-42827. The latter is a log of the cyber exploit under the global Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) naming scheme, which keeps a log of all cyber issues that are discovered by security researchers regularly. According to reports, the latest CVE that affected Apple devices represented an issue with the iOS kernel.
To be sure, the kernel is the core infrastructure of an operating system that has the highest system privilege to access all parts of the software that runs on devices — such as the Apple iPhone and iPad here. This CVE, as a result, could tap the iOS kernel to gain high level privilege to the device system.
As a result, any attacker could gain access to sensitive personal information stored on a user’s iPhone or iPad. To make matters worse, the CVE is believed to have been actively exploited by attackers — thus making it crucial for users to apply the patches right away.