Is your iPhone at risk? Act now.
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Apple warns that iPhones are now under attack from the latest mercenary spyware to be identified in the wild. That’s why it released updates for two critical vulnerabilities just ahead of the holidays. These attacks initially target high-profile individuals. But then the threat expands, putting hundreds of millions more devices at risk.
Apple spyware warnings are not new — neither is its urgent release of emergency fixes. But there’s a twist this time around. Apple is forcing all iPhone users to upgrade to iOS 26 if they own an iPhone 11 or newer. Otherwise, no fixes are available.
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The latest analyst data says hundreds of millions of iPhone users have not yet upgraded. This resistance has now become a thing and leaves us with a high-risk situation. A vast number of devices exposed to vulnerabilities we know are being exploited by attackers.
If you have not yet upgraded your iPhone to iOS 26, then you should act now. Putting aside the obvious advice that you need to upgrade and install the fixes, whether you like Liquid Glass or not, there are other mitigating actions you should take in the meantime.
The first thing is to restart your iPhone now. If you had upgraded to iOS 26, this would have happened anyway. But you haven’t and so it hasn’t. Not only are you running a version of iOS exposed to vulnerabilities, but your phone needs a restart to ensure nothing untoward is already running on the device.
There is plenty of competing cyber advice as to whether regular reboots are required. NSA famously told smartphone users to restart weekly, and that same advice has been echoed by other agencies. Samsung tells Galaxy users to do the same. And while Apple hasn’t issued any advice of its own, the current circumstances are unique.
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As one cyber agency explains, "the complete shutdown of the device stops all processes and removes all software residing only in memory, such as a memory-based, non-persistent spyware.” Beware, though, if the spyware is persistent, it will also restart.
You’re very unlikely to have been targeted by spyware, but you are running a phone which has voluntarily fallen off support. Restart it weekly until that changes. You also need to be very careful with links, attachments and pop-ups for the same reason.