ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): National CERT has issued a new advisory which warns iPhone users about increasing cyber threats while advising them to take immediate security measures.
According to the advisory, using outdated iOS versions can expose devices to serious risks. Users have been strongly advised to update their iPhones to the latest iOS, enable Lockdown Mode, and adopt stronger security measures to prevent potential attacks.
The advisory requires users to create strong Apple ID passwords, which they should protect through two-factor authentication. Users should confirm the safety of suspicious links before clicking them, and they should report any unusual online activity immediately.
The National CERT advisory advises users to protect themselves by avoiding unknown links, avoiding untrusted VPNs and profile installations, and staying away from unsecured public Wi-Fi networks.
Earlier, Cybersecurity experts and researchers have warned that sophisticated spywares called DarkSword and Coruna have the potential to infiltrate millions of Apple iPhones and steal users’ private information and digital assets.
Apple has encouraged people to update their iPhones, suggesting that hackers have been using tools to take over phones running older versions of the iOS operating system.
The experts said the Darksword spyware was found installed on several websites in Ukraine in recent weeks. Researchers also discovered another powerful iPhone spyware, Coruna, was hosted on the same servers.
Cybersecurity companies Lookout, iVerify, and Google published a joint analysis saying that the two hacking tools show how active the modern malware market is for criminals with financial interests.
“DarkSword appears to be a surveillance and intelligence gathering tool, blanket pulling data including Wi-Fi passwords, text messages, call history, root location history, browser history, SIM card and cellular data as well as health, notes, and calendar databases,” iVerify wrote in a news release on Wednesday.
Apple statement on iPhone hacking
An Apple spokesperson said that the two tools, DarkSword and Coruna, can only work against devices running older versions of Apple’s operating system. “Keeping software up to date remains the single most important thing users can do to maintain the high security of their Apple devices,” she said.
The researchers said the malware is targeting iPhone users running iOS versions 18.4 to 18.6.2, which were released between March and August 2025.
Although Apple has released fixes for these bugs, many users have yet to update their devices, and it is estimated that 220 to 270 million iPhones are still running affected versions.
The experts said they discovered the vulnerabilities because the hackers made unusual security blunders that are not typically seen in state-level iPhone hacking.
Last week, Apple released a special update for iPhone users with older devices that cannot fully upgrade to iOS 26, specifically to block hackers from using the hacking tools.
The research on the campaigns shows they both infect phones through a so-called watering hole attack, where a website is designed or hacked to include code that exploits how phones process web traffic and can automatically infect vulnerable phones that visit it.
