Researchers at Paradigm Shift published usbliter8, a working exploit that runs unauthorized code inside the SecureROM of Apple's A12 and A13 chips, the boot code burned into the silicon of devices from the iPhone XS through the iPhone 11, plus the S4 and S5 Apple Watch chips. Because the flaw lives in immutable hardware, no software update can fix it, so affected devices stay vulnerable for life. The catch is that it is not remote: an attacker needs physical possession of the device, must put it in DFU mode, and connect it to a special USB board, after which the exploit runs in under two seconds. It succeeds 2019's checkm8.
SentinelOne has documented a new variant of the SHub macOS infostealer family called Reaper. Victims are lured through fake WeChat and Miro installers hosted on typo-squatted Microsoft domains, then prompted to run what looks like an Apple security update. Reaper avoids macOS Tahoe's new Terminal protections by routing its commands through the applescript:// URL scheme. Once running, it steals browser credentials, crypto wallets, dev configs, iCloud data, and Telegram sessions, replaces legitimate Exodus, Ledger, and Trezor wallet apps with backdoored copies, and installs a persistent fake Google Software Update LaunchAgent that gives the attacker an ongoing remote shell. Files larger than 85MB are uploaded in 70MB chunks.
Foxconn confirmed Tuesday that a cyberattack hit several North American factories, with its Wisconsin Mount Pleasant facility halting production for a week starting May 1. Workers were told to power off computers and revert to paper timesheets. Nitrogen ransomware group claimed responsibility, posting 8 TB of stolen data covering 11 million files - allegedly including project documentation tied to Apple, Intel, Google, Dell, AMD, and Nvidia. Foxconn says production is resuming. This is the fourth ransomware attack on a Foxconn entity since 2020.
Apple released out-of-band iOS and iPadOS updates to fix a Notification Services flaw that kept notifications marked for deletion sitting in internal storage, where they could be pulled off the device later. The bug (CVE-2026-28950) landed after 404 Media reported that the FBI recovered Signal messages from a suspect's iPhone even after the user deleted them and even after Signal itself was uninstalled. The recovered text did not come from Signal's encrypted message store - it came from iPhone's internal notification buffer, which silently preserved incoming notification contents that the app and the OS both thought had been erased. Apple's advisory does not name the FBI case but describes exactly the data-persistence behavior 404 Media documented. Signal's team publicly thanked Apple for the fix. Beyond Signal users, this flaw matters for anyone who assumed that deleting a message or uninstalling an app wiped the underlying notification data from the phone - it did not. Forensic extraction of an unlocked iPhone could have surfaced any sensitive content ever pushed as a notification.
In an unusual move, Apple expanded iOS 18.7.7 to cover far more devices on April 1 - breaking its normal practice of using security updates to push users to the newest OS. Around 20% of iPhones remain on iOS 18 (some by choice, some because they can't run iOS 26), and Apple now considers the DarkSword threat serious enough to backport protections rather than leave those users exposed. The update covers iPhone XR through iPhone 16e and multiple iPad generations. Devices with Automatic Updates enabled get it without user action.
Apple shipped an undocumented security feature in macOS Tahoe 26.4 that directly targets ClickFix attacks - the social engineering technique behind the Infinity Stealer campaign we covered last week. When a user tries to paste a potentially harmful command into Terminal, macOS now intercepts it with a warning before anything executes. The feature only covers Apple's built-in Terminal app, not third-party alternatives like iTerm2. A 'Paste Anyway' option remains for power users.
A government-grade iPhone hacking toolkit called DarkSword was leaked on GitHub on March 23 - and researchers say it's trivially easy to use. Written entirely in HTML and JavaScript, anyone can host it and hack iPhones running iOS 18.4 through 18.7.1. It chains six vulnerabilities including three zero-days for full device takeover, stealing messages, location data, and crypto wallets. Roughly a quarter of all iPhones remain on vulnerable versions.
TrustStrike Labs