Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max
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Apple has released a new iPhone update, just two weeks after the last one. This release is designed to address a particular problem in Notification Services, “where notifications marked for deletion could be unexpectedly retained on the device,” as Apple described it. Here’s all you need to know.
This update is for all iPhones from 2019 onwards. That means iPhone 11 and later. The second-generation and third-generation iPhone SE handsets are included. All members of the iPhone 17 series, including the latest release, iPhone 17e, plus iPhone Air, are also supported.
You’ll likely know this by now, but to download the update, open the Settings app on the iPhone and click on General, followed by Software Update. Here you’ll find Download and Install, and it’ll be downloaded promptly. It’s a small update, 772 MB on my iPhone 17 Pro Max. It downloaded and installed quickly — less than 10 minutes in all.
This update came out of the blue and is focused on one thing: an exploit to Notification Services which meant something that had been marked for deletion could be retained. It’s now been fixed with a logging issue with improved redaction, the company says.
It seems that the vulnerability became known when recent court testimony revealed that the FBI was able to access an internal notification database on an iPhone involved in a federal case in Texas.
“The iPhone in question was set to display the content of Signal messages on the Lock Screen, and with that feature enabled, the iPhone stores message content,” MacRumors reported.
“The defendant in the case had deleted the Signal app and had Signal messages set to disappear, but the iPhone kept the messages in its database long enough for the FBI to access them,” it went on.
This, in other words, is a security flaw that will not impact most people, but has been deemed urgent enough for Apple to issue a new update just to fix it.
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