Apple urges update of older operating systems due to security risks

Apple has patched a critical vulnerability in the iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 operating systems for iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. Experts note that this security flaw may have been exploited by cybercriminals to carry out highly sophisticated targeted attacks. This is reported by Techcrunch.com reports .

According to TechCrunch, the dangerous flaw was found in the core graphics engine that manages the user interface and graphics. This significant discovery was made by Meta's product security team. Detailed information about the bug, officially indexed as CVE-2026-86950, has not been disclosed.

Risk in the graphics engine

Typically, a device's graphics engine has broad access to other parts of the operating system. If an attack is successful, hackers could potentially steal a wide range of personal data from the affected device. However, representatives from Apple and Meta did not comment on how the vulnerability was discovered or how many users were affected.

Although this bug affected Apple's previous generation operating systems, they are still widely used. According to the company's own statistics, nearly four out of every five iPhone owners continue to use iOS 26. The latest versions, iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, released earlier this month, are free from this risk.

New zero-click threats

Shortly before this security patch was announced, Apple had patched another critical bug, CVE-2026-86869. The Belgian cybersecurity research center ironPeak identified this as a "zero-click" vulnerability that executes via iMessage without any user interaction. Such tools are highly valued among spyware developers.

Researchers reported that the malicious code could bypass the iMessage protection layer and take control of the device. Apple resolved this issue through new operating systems released in September and expressed its gratitude to the researchers.