CVE-2026-28973: Use After Free

Published Jul 27, 2026
·
Updated

Accessibility. This issue was addressed through improved state management.

Other sources

Accounts Framework. This issue was addressed with improved data protection.

— Apple

Accounts. A parsing issue in the handling of directory paths was addressed with improved path validation.

— Apple

Accounts. An access issue was addressed with additional sandbox restrictions.

— Apple

afpfs. A buffer overflow was addressed with improved bounds checking.

— Apple

An integer overflow was addressed with improved input validation. This issue is fixed in iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6, macOS Sequoia 15.7.8, macOS Sonoma 14.8.8, macOS Tahoe 26.6, watchOS 26.6. A malicious app may be able to break out of its sandbox.

— MITRE

Credit

Dun, Seonung Park, ALTV!ST (altvi.st/), David Strnadel, Franco Belman at Blackwing Intelligence, Anton Pakhunov, Rodolphe BRUNETTI@@eisw0lf(Lupus Nova), Daniel Febrero, Daniel Williams, Anonymous(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Mathis Mansière, an anonymous researcher, Rahul Raj, James Duffy@@0x4A616D657344, 이재영, Rajdip Dey Sarkar, Arni Hardarson (Neonix Security), CVE-2026-3784, CVE-2026-3783, HvxyZLF, Huỳnh Tấn Ngàn, Ilya Andr (andrd3v)(Positive Technologies), Stanislav Jelezoglo, Redon Gashi, Michael DePlante@@izobashi(TrendAI Zero Day Initiative), Arni Hardarson, Jonathan Alush-Aben, Peter Malone, 진규정 (Gyujeong Jin, @@G1uN4sh, PETOWORKS의 Bugeun Choi@@Bugeun, Geonha Lee@@leegn4a, Lyutoon, f0r(MurphySec), Feng Xue(ThreatBook), XGPT(ThreatBook), Mahmoud Abdelmoniem, Wang Yu, Hiroki Imai (LAC Co., Ltd.), DARKNAVY@@DarkNavyOrg, Fábio Luís@@scanpt, Nicolas Rabrenovic, Pasquale Scola(STAR Labs SG Pte), Billy Jheng Bing Jhong(STAR Labs SG Pte), Pan Zhenpeng@@Peterpan0927(STAR Labs SG Pte), Gor Aleksanyan, impost0r (ret2plt)(Appknox), Ruslan Dautov(Appknox), Aleksandr Tarasikov(Appknox), jay(Appknox), Dhiyanesh Selvaraj@@redroot97(Appknox), Vinay Kumar Rasala (Xplo8E)(Appknox), Lyutoon(STAR Labs SG Pte), DongJun Kim (smlijun) with UIUC(STAR Labs SG Pte), Hwiwon Lee (hwiwonl) with UIUC(STAR Labs SG Pte), Jongseong Kim (nevul37) with UIUC(STAR Labs SG Pte), Younggi Park (grill66) with UIUC(STAR Labs SG Pte), Peter Malone(STAR Labs SG Pte), an anonymous researcher(STAR Labs SG Pte), Hari Shanmugam (The Hxr1)(STAR Labs SG Pte), Marco Grassi, Daniele Castronovo, Michal Kosiorek, Josh Maine(Calif), Ruslan Dautov(Baidu Security), 재영 정(Baidu Security), (Rao Ali Nawaz)@@rootxran(Baidu Security), Chanwit Muenprakoddee (ChemIndy)(Baidu Security), an anonymous researcher(Baidu Security), Ye Zhang@@VAR10CK(Baidu Security), Franco Belman at Blackwing Intelligence(Calif), Christian Figueroa(Calif), Johnny Franks@@zeroxjf(Calif), Ashmit Sharma & Atul RV(Calif), Peter Malone(Calif), Muhamad Syaiful(Calif), Muneeb Amin Bhat(Calif), Dhiyanesh Selvaraj@@redroot97(Calif), Ali Marzouq(Calif), Bountyy Oy - Mihalis Haatainen(Calif), Huy Nguyen@@34306(Calif), Eddy Tsalolikhin, beist(ASU SEFCOM), Adam Doupé(ASU SEFCOM), Dun(STAR Labs SG Pte), Johnny Franks@@zeroxjf, Somair Ansar(Calif), Asjid Kalam@@odinshell, Abhijeet Singh (linkedin.com/in/abhiunix/), Omar Cerrito, impost0r (ret2plt), Hyunwoo Kim@@v4bel, Ryan Hileman via Xint Code (xint.io), Vladislav Shevchenko (Positive Technologies)(Baidu Security), Jian Zhou, Ye Zhang, N.M.Praveen Nawarathne@@zblockrat, Lukas Gerlach, Tristan Madani@@TristanInSec(Talence Security), Daisuke Hatakeyama Research)@@SYZD, Richard Zana(Nosebeard Labs), Andreas Jaegersberger & Ro Achterberg(Nosebeard Labs), 彦辰, stratan@@5tratan, dr3dd, Nathaniel Oh@@calysteon, Gurpreet Shergill, Merrick Hare, Drinor Selmanaj (Sentry), Khai Tran, John Lussier, Rhyru9, Kwak Kiyong, Song Nuri, stratan@@5tratan(Almamater Technologies), Josef Korbel (Citadelo)(Talence Security), Gia Bui@@yabeow(Calif), Narendra Singh@@_3P1C, CVE-2026-43709, Юлия Мерцалова, Tommy DeVoss@@thedawgyg(Braze Security Team), Kagami Rosylight(Mozilla), Nan Wang@@eternalsakura13, Brian Carpenter, Milad Nasr, Nicholas Carlini with Claude, Anthropic, 杉山 壮太(Z), lattice(Z), Behzad Najjarpour Jabbari@@_G4ru_(Z), Junyeong Lee(Z), Mooth.ai(Z), OGINOME Tomohito(Z), Using GLM(Z), Luke Francis, Soyeon Park(DEVCORE Research Team), Amy Burnett(DEVCORE Research Team), Khai Tran(DEVCORE Research Team), sherkito(DEVCORE Research Team), Kota Toda(DEVCORE Research Team), HexRabbit@@h3xr4bb1t(DEVCORE Research Team), NiNi@@terrynini38514(DEVCORE Research Team), Utkarsh Pal, Ignacio Sanmillan@@ulexec, Kwak Kiyong(Talence Security), Song nuri(Talence Security), Mateusz Krzywicki (iVerify.io)(Braze Security Team), dr3dd(Braze Security Team), Jody Ritonga, Behzad Najjarpour Jabbari@@_G4ru_, OpenAI Codex Security - Amy Burnett, Aaron Grattafiori - NVIDIA AI Red Team, Vitaly Simonovich, Christian Meurer Xavier, Josef Korbel, OGINOME Tomohito, Idan Masas, CVE-2026-28979, Shaheen Fazim, Rosyna Keller(Totally Not Malicious Software), Irvin Wang, YingQi Shi@@Mas0nShi(DBAppSecurity's WeBin lab), Rodolphe Brunetti@@eisw0lf(Lupus Nova), Niels Hofmans, Manuel Fernandez (Stackhopper Security), Ashish Kunwar, hxr1, CVE-2026-4424, wh0am1i, Koh M. Nakagawa@@tsunek0h(FFRI Security Inc), Francisco Knabe, Heiko Kiesel(SEEMOO), TU Darmstadt, Stuart Wallace, Jorge Welch@@jorgwelch, Adam Franke(CyStack), Ashish Kunwar(CyStack), Trung Nguyen@@everping(CyStack), Dave G., Pinak Oza, Robert Mindo, tamdao, David Ige - Beryllium Security, Pavan Nallamothu, Jared Reyes, Richard Zana, Gergely Kalman@@gergely_kalman, Csaba Fitzl@@theevilbit(Iru), Matthew Schneider, Dallas Dubs(Nosebeard Labs), Aaron Grattafiori - NVIDIA AI Red Team(Nosebeard Labs), XBreach.ai(Nosebeard Labs), Lance Cain - Offensive Security Engineer, SpecterOps Inc., Gil Portnoy & Henry, Anthony Laou Hine Tsuei@@anarcheuz, Ayaan Ahmad, erdene-och Byambabayar, Alexandre Soleiman, Alexander Tarasikov, Ruslan Dautov, Atul R V & Ashmit Sharma, Hcamael, 章鱼哥 （aipyaipy.com）@@aipy, Aswin Kumar Gokulakannan, Surya Narayan Kushwaha, Cem Onat Karagun, Igor Ushakov, Wang Yu(STAR Labs SG Pte), Ji'an Zhou, Mingxuan Yang, Calif Research, Ernesto Martínez García, Amy (amys.website), He Wei (ギカク)(aipyaipy), 章鱼哥@@aipy(aipyaipy), Jex Amro, yk lin@@pixiepointsec, Robert Tran, Mickey Jin@@patch1t, Matej Moravec@@MacejkoMoravec, Sindre Sorhus, Hcamael(Stripe), 章鱼哥 （aipyaipy.com）@@aipy(Stripe), JC Alvarado(Stripe), Jacob Hazak, @@pixiepointsec, Ilya Andr (andrd3v), Asaf Cohen, Junming C.(Chapoly1305), Alfredo Pesoli@@__rev(Bynar), wdszzml, Atuin Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine, Bob Gendler(the National Institute of Standards), Technology, Vivek Dhar, ASI (RM) in Border Security Force, FTR HQ BSF Kashmir, Claudio Bozzato(Cisco Talos), Francesco Benvenuto(Cisco Talos), Kitten Food, Calif.io in collaboration with Claude, Anthropic Research, Tien-Chih Lin(CyCraft Technology), Bruce Dang(Calif), Jonathan Bar Or@@yo_yo_yo_jbo, Stanislav Jelezoglo(Positive Technologies), Gandalf4a(PKU), Dhiyanesh Selvaraj@@redroot97, hxr1(STAR Labs SG Pte), Hiroki Imai (LAC Co.(STAR Labs SG Pte), Ltd.)(STAR Labs SG Pte), Mahmoud Abdelmoniem(ThreatBook), Hyunwoo Kim@@v4bel(ThreatBook), Vladislav Shevchenko (Positive Technologies)(STAR Labs SG Pte), Kirin@@Pwnrin(Fudan University), LFY@@secsys(Fudan University), Prathamesh Walunj, Atul R V, Dan Raviv, wdszzml(Bynar), Atuin Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine(Bynar)

Affected Software

14 affected componentsFixes available
Apple WatchOS<26.6
26.6
Apple macOS Tahoe<26.6
26.6
Apple macOS Sequoia<15.7.8
15.7.8
Apple macOS Sonoma<14.8.8
14.8.8
Apple iPadOS<26.6
Apple iPhone OS<26.6
Apple macOS>=14.0<14.8.8
Apple macOS>=15.0<15.7.8
Apple macOS>=26.0<26.6
Apple WatchOS<26.6
Apple iOS<26.6
26.6
Apple iPadOS<26.6
26.6
Apple iOS<18.7.10
18.7.10
Apple iPadOS<18.7.10
18.7.10

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 26.6
  2. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 15.7.8
  3. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 14.8.8
  4. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in iOS 26.6
  5. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in iPadOS 26.6
  6. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in macOS Sequoia 15.7.8
  7. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in macOS Sonoma 14.8.8
  8. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in macOS Tahoe 26.6
  9. Upgrade

    Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in watchOS 26.6

Event History

Jul 27, 2026
Data Sourced
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeakness
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
Description
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
Affected Software
CVE Published
via MITRE·08:13 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·08:13 PM
DescriptionWeakness
Data Sourced
via NVD·09:16 PM
DescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software
Aug 17, 2026
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeaknessAffected Software
Updated
via Apple·12:00 AM
DescriptionAffected Software

Parent advisories

This vulnerability appears in the following advisories.

Peer vulnerabilities

Found alongside the following vulnerabilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2026-28973?

The severity of CVE-2026-28973 is high with a CVSS score of 8.6.

2

How do I fix CVE-2026-28973?

To fix CVE-2026-28973, you should update your Apple devices to the latest version of the operating system as provided by Apple.

3

What types of systems are affected by CVE-2026-28973?

CVE-2026-28973 affects Apple WatchOS, iOS, iPadOS, and multiple versions of macOS including Tahoe, Sequoia, and Sonoma.

4

What vulnerabilities are associated with CVE-2026-28973?

CVE-2026-28973 is associated with vulnerabilities such as Use After Free, Buffer Overflow, Input Validation, Integer Overflow, and Race Condition.

5

When was CVE-2026-28973 published?

CVE-2026-28973 was published on July 27, 2026.

Company

Resources

Contact

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