The zero-day may be exploited to facilitate commercial spyware compromise.
Apple has issued updates to fix an iOS and iPadOS zero-day flaw.
Tracked as CVE-2025-24200, the vulnerability is thought to have been leveraged in advanced targeted intrusions that deactivated locked devices' USB Restricted Mode functionality.
According to Security Affairs, Apple’s USB Restricted Mode is a security feature introduced in iOS 11.4.1 to protect devices from unauthorized access via the Lightning port. This mode disables the data connection of the iPhone’s Lightning port after a specific interval of time, but it doesn’t interrupt the charging process. Any other data transfer would require the user to provide the passcode.
“A physical attack may disable USB Restricted Mode on a locked device,” reads the release notes for iOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 18.3.1. “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.”
Findings from Citizen Lab - who discovered and reported the vulnerability - suggest the zero-day exploitation to facilitate commercial spyware compromise.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
