The Indian government on Friday flagged Apple Watch models running watchOS versions older than 8.7 with multiple security flaws. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issued an advisory for Apple Watch users to update their devices to the latest software as quickly as possible.
Apple launched the watchOS 8 operating system in September, following which, watchOS 8.7 is the sixth major update. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s CERT-In has warned of ‘high risk’ vulnerabilities in the older version of the Apple Watch operating system that may allow hackers to bypass the company’s security restrictions. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and bypass security restrictions on the targeted device, says the advisory by the government agency, adding that the Apple Watch’s flaws might allow an attacker to run arbitrary code.
Apple Watch has vulnerabilities related to buffer overrun in the AppleAVD component and an authorization problem in the AppleMobileFileIntegrity component, according to CERT-in. Out-of-bounds reading in the kernel component, memory corruption in the GPU Drivers component, type confusion in the Multi-Touch component, multiple out-of-bounds writing, and memory corruption in the WebKit, Audio, and ICU components, as well as memory initialization in the libxml2 component, are a few of the existing vulnerabilities in the Apple Watch.
However, an Apple Watch user need not worry because the company has already provided security updates. A user can update the smartwatch by going to Settings > General > Software Update on the smartwatch. The update will resolve all the issues on the smartwatches. Apple has also highlighted the same problems and acknowledged the vulnerability on its help page.
Apple says that there are no new prominent features in watchOS 8.7. Instead, the updated software focuses on under-the-hood ‘improvements,’ along with bug fixes and important security updates. Meanwhile, the company is gearing up to launch the Apple Watch Series 8 later this year.
