Apple releases iOS 15.2.1 to patch a DDoS vulnerability

This is a security risk in Apple’s HomeKit protocol. This controls connections to various smart home devices. With bad intentions, your iPhone or iPad can get stuck and freeze by renaming a compatible HomeKit device and making it up to 500,000 characters. iOS 15.2.1 makes that impossible.

Since iOS also stores the names of HomeKit devices in iCloud as a backup, iOS users may get caught up in a nearly endless series of crashes. Apple’s latest update removes this risk.

“iOS 15.2.1 has been out of service for a long time”

It was security researcher Trevor Spinola who exposed the vulnerability. He documented the problem on his site website. Its publication dates back to January 1, and says it warned Apple of the vulnerability in August. The American tech giant has promised to solve the problem before the end of 2021, but the final solution has only come now.

“I feel that this error is not being handled properly and that it is too dangerous for users. It has been several months without a clear solution,” Spinola wrote at the turn of the year.

The tech discovered that the vulnerability is present in all iOS versions from iOS 14.7. This is probably also the case for all versions of iOS 14. So if you’ve been behind on your updates for a while, you now have every reason to immediately upgrade to iOS 15.2.1.