Washington, July 01 (QNA) - Apple has released emergency security updates for iPhone, iPad and Mac devices ahead of schedule, patching more than 25 vulnerabilities as it moves to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated AI-assisted cyber threats.
The updates -- iOS 26.5.2, iPadOS 26.5.2 and macOS Tahoe 26.5.2 -- were released earlier than planned after Apple said advances in artificial intelligence are enabling attackers to develop exploit tools more rapidly. The company said it shortened the time between identifying security flaws and making patches available to users rather than waiting for the planned 26.6 releases.
The updates address a wide range of vulnerabilities affecting core system components, including WebKit, WebKit Storage, WebKit Canvas, Web Extensions, and the operating system kernel.
According to Apple, some of the flaws could have allowed attackers to access sensitive user information, steal data from other websites, crash the Safari browser, or bypass the browser's security sandbox to process restricted web content.
Among the fixes is a vulnerability in WebKit Storage that could have allowed a malicious website to access clipboard data without a user's knowledge. Apple also patched multiple memory-related flaws, including memory corruption, use-after-free vulnerabilities, type confusion, out-of-bounds writes, permission issues and cross-site data handling weaknesses.
The updates also fix several kernel vulnerabilities that could have allowed applications to write to kernel memory, trigger unexpected system crashes, leak sensitive kernel information, or cause memory corruption.
Apple urged users to install the updates immediately, adding that it is not aware of any evidence that the vulnerabilities have been exploited in real-world attacks. (QNA)