Description

The issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in iOS 26.6.1 and iPadOS 26.6.1, macOS Tahoe 26.6.2. Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to memory corruption.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "5.4",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-17T22:17:23.480Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-17T22:17:23.480Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This advisory details a critical memory corruption vulnerability affecting multiple Apple operating systems, specifically iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The flaw resides in the processing pipeline responsible for handling web content. When a victim processes maliciously crafted web content, an attacker can trigger improper memory handling, leading to a state of memory corruption. The potential impact of this security deficiency is severe, potentially allowing for arbitrary code execution within the context of the application or system. The affected products include iOS and iPadOS prior to version 26.6.1, and macOS Tahoe prior to version 26.6.2. The vulnerability poses significant risk implications regarding confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the underlying host. Exploitation typically requires the user to interact with or navigate to hostile web content, such as a malicious website or compromised web-based vector, under the attacker's control. The issue has been formally addressed by the vendor through the implementation of improved memory handling routines in the specified patched software releases.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability stems from improper memory handling during the parsing and rendering of untrusted web content within the affected Apple ecosystem components. Specifically, when the affected subsystem processes maliciously crafted web content, it fails to safely manage memory allocations and deallocations, leading to out-of-bounds access, use-after-free, or buffer overflow conditions collectively categorized as memory corruption. The vulnerable component is tightly integrated into the web processing engine utilized across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Attack flow initiates when a user is induced to access or process malicious web content via a browser or an application rendering web views. The malicious payload is specifically engineered to exploit the memory management flaw by manipulating heap structures or triggering race conditions during object lifecycle management. Upon successful execution of the payload, the memory corruption can lead to unpredictable application behavior, crashes, or more critically, the capability for an adversary to hijack the execution flow. Authentication requirements are non-existent for the initial trigger, as the vector relies purely on external web inputs. Privilege requirements are constrained to the standard execution context of the web processing component or application. Network exposure is present whenever the device processes web content from remote or untrusted sources. Post-exploitation impact can range from complete system compromise to unauthorized access to sensitive user data, depending on the constraints of the sandbox environment and the success of any privilege escalation techniques chained by the attacker. The issue is resolved in iOS 26.6.1, iPadOS 26.6.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.6.2 through enhanced memory management validations and boundary checks."
}