About the security content of watchOS 5 - Apple Support

About Apple security updates

For our customers’ protection, Apple doesn’t disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until an investigation has occurred and patches or releases are available. Recent releases are listed on the Apple security updates page.

For more information about security, see the Apple Product Security page. You can encrypt communications with Apple using the Apple Product Security PGP Key.

Apple security documents reference vulnerabilities by CVE-ID when possible.

watchOS 5

Released September 17, 2018

CFNetwork

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4126: Bruno Keith (@bkth_) working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative

Entry added October 30, 2018

CoreFoundation

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2018-4412: The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

Entry added October 30, 2018

CoreFoundation

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to gain elevated privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2018-4414: The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

Entry added October 30, 2018

CoreText

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted text file may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

CVE-2018-4347: an anonymous researcher

Entry added October 30, 2018

dyld

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A malicious application may be able to modify protected parts of the file system

Description: A configuration issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

CVE-2018-4433: Vitaly Cheptsov

Entry added January 22, 2019

Grand Central Dispatch

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4426: Brandon Azad

Entry added October 30, 2018

Heimdal

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4331: Brandon Azad

CVE-2018-4332: Brandon Azad

CVE-2018-4343: Brandon Azad

Entry added October 30, 2018

IOHIDFamily

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A malicious application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2018-4408: Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

Entry added October 30, 2018, updated August 1, 2019

IOKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A malicious application may be able to break out of its sandbox

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4341: Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

CVE-2018-4354: Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

Entry added October 30, 2018

IOKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved state management.

CVE-2018-4383: Apple

Entry added October 24, 2018

IOUserEthernet

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4401: Apple

Entry added October 30, 2018

iTunes Store

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to spoof password prompts in the iTunes Store

Description: An input validation issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2018-4305: Jerry Decime

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to read restricted memory

Description: An input validation issue existed in the kernel. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2018-4363: Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4336: Brandon Azad

CVE-2018-4337: Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

CVE-2018-4340: Mohamed Ghannam (@_simo36)

CVE-2018-4344: The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

CVE-2018-4425: cc working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, Juwei Lin (@panicaII) of Trend Micro working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative

Entry added September 24, 2018, updated October 30, 2018

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A malicious application may be able to leak sensitive user information

Description: An access issue existed with privileged API calls. This issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

CVE-2018-4399: Fabiano Anemone (@anoane)

Entry added October 30, 2018

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to execute arbitrary code

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2018-4407: Kevin Backhouse of Semmle Ltd.

Entry added October 30, 2018

Safari

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to discover websites a user has visited

Description: A consistency issue existed in the handling of application snapshots. The issue was addressed with improved handling of application snapshots.

CVE-2018-4313: 11 anonymous researchers, David Scott, Enes Mert Ulu of Abdullah Mürşide Özünenek Anadolu Lisesi - Ankara/Türkiye, Mehmet Ferit Daştan of Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, Metin Altug Karakaya of Kaliptus Medical Organization, Vinodh Swami of Western Governor’s University (WGU)

Security

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An attacker may be able to exploit weaknesses in the RC4 cryptographic algorithm

Description: This issue was addressed by removing RC4.

CVE-2016-1777: Pepi Zawodsky

Security

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to cause a denial of service

Description: This issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2018-4395: Patrick Wardle of Digita Security

Entry added October 30, 2018

Symptom Framework

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to read restricted memory

Description: An out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved bounds checking.

CVE-2018-4203: Bruno Keith (@bkth_) working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative

Entry added October 30, 2018

Text

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted text file may lead to a denial of service

Description: A denial of service issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2018-4304: jianan.huang (@Sevck)

Entry added October 30, 2018

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A malicious website may cause unexepected cross-origin behavior

Description: A cross-origin issue existed with iframe elements. This was addressed with improved tracking of security origins.

CVE-2018-4319: John Pettitt of Google

Entry added September 24, 2018

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Unexpected interaction causes an ASSERT failure

Description: A memory consumption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4361: found by OSS-Fuzz

CVE-2018-4474: found by OSS-Fuzz

Entry added September 24, 2018, updated January 22, 2019

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Unexpected interaction causes an ASSERT failure

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2018-4191: found by OSS-Fuzz

Entry added September 24, 2018

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Cross-origin SecurityErrors includes the accessed frame’s origin

Description: The issue was addressed by removing origin information.

CVE-2018-4311: Erling Alf Ellingsen (@steike)

Entry added September 24, 2018

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: Multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2018-4299: Samuel Groβ (saelo) working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative

CVE-2018-4359: Samuel Groß (@5aelo)

CVE-2018-4358: @phoenhex team (@bkth_ @5aelo @_niklasb) working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative

Entry added September 24, 2018

Additional recognition

Core Data

We would like to acknowledge Andreas Kurtz (@aykay) of NESO Security Labs GmbH for their assistance.

Sandbox Profiles

We would like to acknowledge Tencent Keen Security Lab working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative for their assistance.

SQLite

We would like to acknowledge Andreas Kurtz (@aykay) of NESO Security Labs GmbH for their assistance.

WebKit

We would like to acknowledge Tencent Keen Security Lab working with Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative for their assistance.