CVE-2019-8605 — Iphone Os
HIGHCVE-2019-8605 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Use After Free vulnerability in apple iphone os. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-06-27) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in iOS 12.3, macOS Mojave 10.14.5, tvOS 12.3, watchOS 5.2.1. A malicious application may be…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-06-27. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-07-18.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2019-8605.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-8605 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in iOS 12.3, macOS Mojave 10.14.5, tvOS 12.3, watchOS 5.2.1. A malicious application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges.
Affected Products
iphone osapplemac os xappletvosapplewatchosappleResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
iOS < 12.4.1 - 'Jailbreak' Local Privilege Escalation
by Umang Raghuvanshi · Sep 23, 2019
Apple macOS < 10.14.5 / iOS < 12.3 XNU - 'in6_pcbdetach' Stale Pointer Use-After-Free
by Google Security Research · May 21, 2019
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every apple iphone os deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Fix
Apply the apple iphone os security patch or hotfix for CVE-2019-8605 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-8605 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.