This is a friendly — and important — reminder to update your iPhone and iPad, if you haven’t already.
Apple this week issued an urgent security update for iPhone and iPad owners to patch a flaw that could allow hackers to take control of the devices.
Specifically, iOS 15.6.1 and iPadOS 15.6.1 is available for the iPhone 6S and later, iPad Pro (all models), iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation and later, iPad Mini 4 and later, and the iPod Touch (7th generation).
A similarly important security update has also been issued for Mac users.
Alarmingly, the tech giant added that it’s “aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited,” suggesting knowledge of an incident where a hacker or hackers have already taken advantage of the flaw. However, it declined to offer any further details about what it knows.
To download the update for your iPhone or iPad, simply go to Settings, then select General, and Software Update. After that, follow the instructions to download the update.
It’s not unusual for Apple to roll out security updates for its phones as and when flaws come to light, but as this one may have already been exploited in the wild, customers should download this latest fix as soon as possible.
Apple released iOS 15 in September last year and since then a number of security issues have been brought to its attention, resulting in updates. They include one in January that resolved a serious flaw with the Safari browser for iPhone and iPad, and another in April, which, similar to this week’s issue, left the iPhone open to hackers.
Digital Trends has reached out to Apple for more information on the recently discovered security flaw and we will update this article when we hear back.
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