HomeBlogUncategorizedUpdate Your iPhone Now: ‘DarkSword’ Leak Puts Millions at Risk of Hacks

Update Your iPhone Now: ‘DarkSword’ Leak Puts Millions at Risk of Hacks

by 3Point Auto

Mar 26, 2026

Uncategorized

An attack targeting pre-iOS 26 iPhones has leaked online, making it easy for any hacker to adopt and abuse it.

The “DarkSword” attack raises alarm bells because it can be hosted on a website to secretly install malware on vulnerable iPhones using iOS 18.4 to 18.7. The iPhone merely needs to visit the malicious site via Apple’s Safari browser.

When the exploit was first disclosed, security researchers had only identified a few shadowy groups and surveillance vendors involved in the attack. But since then, the DarkSword code has been posted to GitHub. One of the security companies that warned about DarkSword, iVerify, says the leaked code “will work out of the box,” according to TechCrunch.

The leak appears to have come from an unnamed GitHub user who claims to have captured the attack in the wild. Though a suspected Russian hacking group was recently found using DarkSword to target Ukrainian iPhone owners, the mysterious GitHub user says they aren’t interested in Russian or Ukrainian politics, but wanted to expose the attack, calling it “sloppy tradecraft.”

Leaking the code is a double-edged sword; although cybercriminals can quickly adopt it for their own schemes, publicizing the exploit techniques can also force the entire industry to bolster its defenses to stop the threat.

The good news is that DarkSword has only been proven to work on older versions of iOS, although iOS 26 adoption has reportedly been slow. In a rare move, Apple published a support page urging iPhone owners to update to the latest version of iOS.

“If you have kept your iPhone software up to date, then you are already protected,” the company wrote. “We released a software update for iOS 15 and iOS 16 on March 11, 2026, to extend protection to older devices that cannot update to the latest version of iOS.”

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The company also noted that iPhones that activate Lockdown Mode, which can protect users from spyware threats, can also block DarkSword. For users with even older iPhones, Apple says: “Devices with iOS 13 or iOS 14 must update to iOS 15 to receive these protections and will receive an additional alert to install a Critical Security Update in the next few days.”

Still, it’s possible hackers could use DarkSword and improve upon it. One developer in Europe claims to have used the leaked code to develop a way to hack an even wider range of software versions, from iOS 15 to iOS 26.0.1, although his code remains untested at this point.