If You Have An iPhone, Install The Latest Security Update ASAP

If you use an iPhone, then you need to stop what you’re doing and install the latest security update right now. At this very minute. Immediately. Unless you want to leave your phone susceptible to being hacked, that is.

Apple pushed the iOS 9.3.5 update patch just a few days ago on August 25, and it will fix three huge security holes in the iPhone operating system. These security holes are called “zero-day” vulnerabilities. This means they are software issues that haven’t been disclosed or discovered until somebody who isn’t the developer finds “and/or exploits them,” reports Consumerist.

Earlier this month, the tech website Motherboard reported on a hack that attempted to access the iPhone of a human rights activist from the United Arab Emirates. After receiving a suspicious text message, the activist forwarded it to security experts and the threat was discovered.

The text message, which contained a link, did not lead to government secrets as promised. Instead, it was meant to unleash sophisticated malware that would target the three zero-day holes and give the hackers complete control over the phone.

The security experts immediately contacted Apple, and this patch was created and pushed out to users a few days ago.

That being said, to find multiple zero-day bugs of this magnitude in iOS is so uncommon that this is the first occurrence. In a grim sort of twist, the security experts were actually impressed.

“We realized that we were looking at something that no one had ever seen in the wild before. Literally a click on a link to jailbreak an iPhone in one step,” one of the experts told Motherboard in an interview. “One of the most sophisticated pieces of cyberespionage software we’ve ever seen.”

So really, take the five minutes and install the security update on your phone. While it’s unlikely that anyone has plans to hack your phone, personal data is not something about which we should be cavalier.