Apple Warning—Upgrade Your iPhone To iOS 26.2, If You Can

Do not leave this update until it's too late.

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Take this seriously. If your iPhone does not have Apple’s new update, you must install it now. We know attacks on iPhones have started. We have been warned the threat will extend well beyond those highly targeted initial attacks. And hundreds of millions of iPhone users are also now facing down an unwelcome surprise.

The last available analyst data says hundreds of millions of iPhone users with devices eligible for Apple’s current iOS 26 firmware have yet to upgrade. Those users had expected to be offered the update to iOS 18.7.3, avoiding iOS 26 for a little longer. But Apple withdrew that update for all but iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR.

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It’s now a choice between upgrading to iOS 26.2 or no security update. A quick scan of online forums a week after all this was confirmed is a nasty surprise. Plenty of users say they intend to stick with iOS 18.7.2 and avoid the update altogether. That’s bad news.

Mayuresh Dani from Qualys warns "the two critical WebKit vulnerabilities are memory safety violations that Apple confirms were weaponized in real-world targeted attacks against specific individuals on pre-iOS 26 devices. CVE-2025-43529 allows threat actors a direct code execution capability, while CVE-2025-14174 provides the much needed sandbox escape and privilege escalation capabilities which makes it devastating.”

Do not run your iPhone without these critical WebKit security fixes. “Users should urgently update all their impacted Apple devices,” James Maude from BeyondTrust told me. “Even though this only appears to be linked to a small number of targeted attacks it will quickly become a must have exploit for a range of threat actors."

Google also issued a similar attack warning and update for Android phones this month. That’s why I have dubbed this Dangerous December, with billions affected. Android has a major problem with 30% of all phones ineligible for security updates. Apple doesn’t have anything like as many — but if users delay updates, it has the same effect.

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Per MacObserver, “you can see the frustration in community posts: a lot of users want to stay on iOS 18 for a while,” while “others say iOS 26 runs fine for them. The split matters because Apple’s move leaves you with a harder choice: upgrade now, or stay put without the newest patch.” And that means a device that is exposed to active exploits.

Check your iPhone. If you’re running iOS 18.7.2, you should update to iOS 26.2 assuming iOS 18.7.3 is not available. The period of maximum risk for vulnerabilities is the time between public disclosure and extensive patching. That’s right now.