Apple has released a new version of the iPhone and iPad operating systems, number 16.3.1, to fix a vulnerability that hackers were already starting to use.
A so-called 'zero day' vulnerability, never intercepted before, which was discovered by a researcher from the Citizen Lab, a digital rights research group at the Munk School of the University of Toronto.
The vulnerability affects WebKit, a software used for the Safari search engine, targeted by hackers, which can open access to the rest of the device's data.
Apple credited the discovery to an anonymous researcher and thanked Citizen Lab "for their assistance."
The Lab is known for exposing the abuse of government hacking tools such as those made by Israel's Nso Group.
In 2021, Motherboard reported that in the first four months of the year alone, Apple had fixed seven bugs already exploited by cybercriminals, including six in WebKit, a number experts considered high at the time.
Since then things have improved.
According to TechCrunch's vulnerability count, since January 2022, there have been nine bugs in iOS that "may have been actively exploited," including four in WebKit.
The other three were located in the kernel, the main operating system component of Apple devices, and one in AppleAvd, the company's audio and video decoding platform.
The American giant recommends users to update to iOS 16.3.1, iPadOS 16.3.1, macOS Ventura 13.2.1 and Safari 16.3.1 to mitigate potential risks.