Apple Does Not Deliver On Its Promise To Release A Emergency Patch To Fix The Messages Bug
Earlier this week Apple promised that an emergency patch would be released this week to address a Messages bug that can cause your iDevice to crash, or even worse force you to restore from a backup. And possible it was also going to fix a zero day iOS Mail exploit that is allegedly being exploited. Well, as I type this it is Friday at 2:21 PM EST and no patch has been released. While I will admit that Apple has been known to occasionally release updates on Fridays, or even Saturdays, or even late in the day beyond the 1PM EST that they tend to release updates, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the patch isn’t coming today.
For a company that claims to take this sort of stuff seriously, and seeing that at present users are unprotected at present, this really isn’t good optics for Apple. They could at least release some sort of statement saying that the patch isn’t being released today and when users can expect to see it. But I am not holding my breath. Apple hasn’t been the sort of company to be completely transparent and I don’t expect them to start now. Which is a shame as these two exploits require a better response from them.
May 7, 2020 at 1:31 pm
You know, I’ve been searching for an update on this situation for the past half-hour, and it appears that you’re the one blog with the guts to post it: this is a HUGE fail by Apple. Here we are with a zero day exploit running wild for the better part of 2 weeks now (actually years and years, but only two weeks since it was brought to the public’s attention), and Apple continues to just mosey along, taking their sweet time issuing a patch, without a care in the world.
There was a time when I found the “Apple declines to comment” moments as a mark of the company being above the fray. Now I see that it’s just unbridled arrogance and a complete disdain for their own customers. I’ve been pro-Apple for over 10 years, but my current iPhone, iPad, and Mac will be the last ones I own.
May 7, 2020 at 2:13 pm
Ironically I was working on an update to this when you posted this comment. I hope you don’t mind but I used it in my update which is online now: https://itnerd.blog/2020/05/07/an-update-to-apples-lack-of-a-security-patch-to-solve-two-serious-ios-security-issues/
May 7, 2020 at 2:11 pm
[…] that an emergency patch would be released last week to address the Messages bug at the very least. But that didn’t happen. And there was no comment from Apple in regards to that. Not that I am shocked by that as Apple […]
May 8, 2020 at 11:46 am
Not at all—I take it as a compliment!
Thanks for being willing to call Apple out on this; to me, beyond the company’s disregard for its customers, it really erodes trust in their promises of security and privacy. They’ve used those tenets as a means to separate their products from Android and Microsoft, but if they truly prioritized security, then why the delay? We’re not asking them to rush an update that will give us a super cool new laughing emoji; we’re asking for an emergency fix that could prevent user data from being exposed.
Apple’s lack of a timely response strikes at the heart of their company’s biggest hallmark, and to this former fanboy, that is inexcusable.
I’ll continue reading your blog, now that I’ve found you—both for updates on this situation and on the other helpful articles on the site. Thanks for putting in the hard work.
May 12, 2020 at 8:30 am
[…] Now this and one other security issue was promised to be fixed by Apple a couple of weeks ago. But that didn’t happen. Though the other security issue that I mentioned was confirmed to be fixed in a beta of iOS 13.5, […]
May 21, 2020 at 8:10 am
[…] patch would be released a couple of weeks to address the Messages bug at the very least. But that didn’t happen. And I among others have been critical of Apple’s response to this ever […]