Apple has released security updates that fix three zero-day vulnerabilities affecting iPhones, Mac computers and the Watch smartwatch. According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which found two of them and reported them to Apple, the vulnerabilities were used for “professional” espionage attacks.

Updates published by Apple are a mandatory installation for its users, as experts agree on their severity. Spain’s National Cyber ​​Security Institute (incibe) has actually issued a warning level 5 with the highest level of importance: critical.

The discovered 0day vulnerabilities were identified using the tags CVE-2023-32434, CVE-2023-32435, and CVE-2023-32439. They affect the kernel and WebKit and can enable run any code with kernel rights or process web content for malicious purposes.

Kaspersky also published a report with technical details of the case, which the company called “Operation Triangulation.” According to the company, the attacks would have started in 2019 and were discovered when some of its engineers discovered that their iPhones had been infected through ready-to-distribute exploits in the iMessage messaging client that exploited iOS zero-day bugs.

Spyware triangulation: used for professional espionage

The case has come to international attention due to the severity of the vulnerability, its potential use for high-level espionage, and as another conflict between Russia and the United States, as Russia’s FSB intelligence and security agency assured that «Apple provided the NSA backdoor to help infect iPhones in Russia with spyware”.

The FSB claimed to have found thousands of infected iPhones belonging to Russian government officials and embassy staff in Israel, China and NATO member countries. Apple has completely denied this: “We have never worked with any government to put a backdoor into any Apple product and we never will”a BleepingComputer spokesperson said.

In addition to the international conflict and because the list of affected devices is quite extensive, since day zero affects the oldest and newest models, it is recommended to update your device as soon as possible to the latest available versions:

• iPhone or iPad
• Mac Operating System
• apple watch