About the security content of watchOS 10.5

This document describes the security content of watchOS 10.5.

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 releases page.

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

For more information about security, see the Apple Product Security page.

watchOS 10.5

Apple Neural Engine

Available for devices with Apple Neural Engine: Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2

Impact: A local attacker may be able to cause unexpected system shutdown

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2024-27826: Minghao Lin, and Ye Zhang (@VAR10CK) of Baidu Security

AppleAVD

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to cause unexpected system termination

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2024-27804: Meysam Firouzi (@R00tkitSMM)

AppleMobileFileIntegrity

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An attacker may be able to access user data

Description: A logic issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27816: Mickey Jin (@patch1t)

Core Data

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

Description: An issue was addressed with improved validation of environment variables.

CVE-2024-27805: Kirin (@Pwnrin) and 小来来 (@Smi1eSEC)

Disk Images

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to elevate privileges

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27832: an anonymous researcher

Foundation

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to elevate privileges

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27801: CertiK SkyFall Team

IOSurface

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

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

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2024-27828: Pan ZhenPeng (@Peterpan0927) of STAR Labs SG Pte. Ltd.

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An attacker that has already achieved kernel code execution may be able to bypass kernel memory protections

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2024-27840: an anonymous researcher

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

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

Description: An out-of-bounds write issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2024-27815: an anonymous researcher, and Joseph Ravichandran (@0xjprx) of MIT CSAIL

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to spoof network packets

Description: A race condition was addressed with improved locking.

CVE-2024-27823: Prof. Benny Pinkas of Bar-Ilan University, Prof. Amit Klein of Hebrew University, and EP

libiconv

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to elevate privileges

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27811: Nick Wellnhofer

Mail

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An attacker with physical access may be able to leak Mail account credentials

Description: An authentication issue was addressed with improved state management.

CVE-2024-23251: Gil Pedersen

Mail

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: A maliciously crafted email may be able to initiate FaceTime calls without user authorization

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-23282: Dohyun Lee (@l33d0hyun)

Maps

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to read sensitive location information

Description: A path handling issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2024-27810: LFY@secsys of Fudan University

Messages

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted message may lead to a denial-of-service

Description: This issue was addressed by removing the vulnerable code.

CVE-2024-27800: Daniel Zajork and Joshua Zajork

Phone

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: A person with physical access to a device may be able to view contact information from the lock screen

Description: This issue was addressed through improved state management.

CVE-2024-27814: Dalibor Milanovic

RemoteViewServices

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An attacker may be able to access user data

Description: A logic issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27816: Mickey Jin (@patch1t)

Shortcuts

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: A shortcut may output sensitive user data without consent

Description: A path handling issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2024-27821: Kirin (@Pwnrin), zbleet, and Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) of Kandji

Spotlight

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

Description: This issue was addressed with improved environment sanitization.

CVE-2024-27806

Transparency

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access user-sensitive data

Description: This issue was addressed with a new entitlement.

CVE-2024-27884: Mickey Jin (@patch1t)

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: An attacker with arbitrary read and write capability may be able to bypass Pointer Authentication

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27834: Manfred Paul (@_manfp) working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: A maliciously crafted webpage may be able to fingerprint the user

Description: The issue was addressed by adding additional logic.

CVE-2024-27838: Emilio Cobos of Mozilla

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: Processing web content may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2024-27808: Lukas Bernhard of CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

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

Description: The issue was addressed with improved bounds checks.

CVE-2024-27851: Nan Wang (@eternalsakura13) of 360 Vulnerability Research Institute

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: A malicious attacker with arbitrary read and write capability may be able to bypass Pointer Authentication

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2024-27834: Manfred Paul (@_manfp) working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative

WebKit Canvas

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: A maliciously crafted webpage may be able to fingerprint the user

Description: This issue was addressed through improved state management.

CVE-2024-27830: Joe Rutkowski (@Joe12387) of Crawless and @abrahamjuliot

WebKit Web Inspector

Available for: Apple Watch Series 4 and later

Impact: Processing web content may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2024-27820: Jeff Johnson of underpassapp.com

Additional recognition

App Store

We would like to acknowledge an anonymous researcher for their assistance.

AppleMobileFileIntegrity

We would like to acknowledge Mickey Jin (@patch1t) for their assistance.

CoreHAP

We would like to acknowledge Adrian Cable for their assistance.

Disk Images

We would like to acknowledge Mickey Jin (@patch1t) for their assistance.

HearingCore

We would like to acknowledge an anonymous researcher for their assistance.

ImageIO

We would like to acknowledge an anonymous researcher for their assistance.

Managed Configuration

We would like to acknowledge 遥遥领先 (@晴天组织) for their assistance.

Siri

We would like to acknowledge Abhay Kailasia (@abhay_kailasia) of Lakshmi Narain College of Technology Bhopal India for their assistance.