About the security content of watchOS 26

This document describes the security content of watchOS 26.

About Apple security updates

For our customers' protection, Apple doesn't disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until an investigation has occurred and patches or releases are available. Recent releases are listed on the Apple security releases page.

Apple security documents reference vulnerabilities by CVE-ID when possible.

For more information about security, see the Apple Product Security page.

watchOS 26

Apple Neural Engine

Available for: Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Apple Watch SE 2nd generation, Apple Watch Ultra (all models)

Impact: An app may be able to cause unexpected system termination

Description: An out-of-bounds access issue was addressed with improved bounds checking.

CVE-2025-43344: an anonymous researcher

AppleMobileFileIntegrity

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

Description: A permissions issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

CVE-2025-43317: Mickey Jin (@patch1t)

Audio

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted media file may lead to unexpected app termination or corrupt process memory

Description: An out-of-bounds access issue was addressed with improved bounds checking.

CVE-2025-43346: Hossein Lotfi (@hosselot) of Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative

Bluetooth

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

Description: A logging issue was addressed with improved data redaction.

CVE-2025-43354: Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) of Kandji

CVE-2025-43303: Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) of Kandji

CoreAudio

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted video file may lead to unexpected app termination

Description: An out-of-bounds write issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2025-43349: @zlluny working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative

CoreMedia

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted media file may lead to unexpected app termination or corrupt process memory

Description: The issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2025-43372: 이동하 (Lee Dong Ha) of SSA Lab

IOHIDFamily

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to cause unexpected system termination

Description: An out-of-bounds write issue was addressed with improved bounds checking.

CVE-2025-43302: Keisuke Hosoda

IOKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

Description: An authorization issue was addressed with improved state management.

CVE-2025-31255: Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) of Kandji

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: A UDP server socket bound to a local interface may become bound to all interfaces

Description: A logic issue was addressed with improved state management.

CVE-2025-43359: Viktor Oreshkin

MobileStorageMounter

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to cause a denial-of-service

Description: A type confusion issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2025-43355: Dawuge of Shuffle Team

Sandbox

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to break out of its sandbox

Description: A permissions issue was addressed with additional restrictions.

CVE-2025-43329: an anonymous researcher

Spell Check

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An app may be able to access sensitive user data

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

CVE-2025-43190: Noah Gregory (wts.dev)

SQLite

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing a file may lead to memory corruption

Description: This is a vulnerability in open source code and Apple Software is among the affected projects. The CVE-ID was assigned by a third party. Learn more about the issue and CVE-ID at cve.org.

CVE-2025-6965

System

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: An input validation issue was addressed

Description: This issue was addressed by removing the vulnerable code.

CVE-2025-43347: JZ, Seo Hyun-gyu (@wh1te4ever), Luke Roberts (@rookuu)

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: A website may be able to access sensor information without user consent

Description: The issue was addressed with improved handling of caches.

CVE-2025-43356: Jaydev Ahire

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected Safari crash

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2025-43272: Big Bear

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

Description: The issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2025-43343: an anonymous researcher

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 6 and later

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to an unexpected process crash

Description: A correctness issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2025-43342: an anonymous researcher

Additional recognition

Accounts

We would like to acknowledge 要乐奈 for their assistance.

AuthKit

We would like to acknowledge Rosyna Keller of Totally Not Malicious Software for their assistance.

Calendar

We would like to acknowledge Keisuke Chinone (Iroiro) for their assistance.

CFNetwork

We would like to acknowledge Christian Kohlschütter for their assistance.

CloudKit

We would like to acknowledge Yinyi Wu (@_3ndy1) from Dawn Security Lab of JD.com, Inc for their assistance.

darwinOS

We would like to acknowledge Nathaniel Oh (@calysteon) for their assistance.

Foundation

We would like to acknowledge Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) of Kandji for their assistance.

ImageIO

We would like to acknowledge DongJun Kim (@smlijun) and JongSeong Kim (@nevul37) in Enki WhiteHat for their assistance.

Kernel

We would like to acknowledge Yepeng Pan, Prof. Dr. Christian Rossow for their assistance.

libc

We would like to acknowledge Nathaniel Oh (@calysteon) for their assistance.

libpthread

We would like to acknowledge Nathaniel Oh (@calysteon) for their assistance.

libxml2

We would like to acknowledge Nathaniel Oh (@calysteon) for their assistance.

Lockdown Mode

We would like to acknowledge Pyrophoria and Ethan Day, kado for their assistance.

mDNSResponder

We would like to acknowledge Barrett Lyon for their assistance.

MediaRemote

We would like to acknowledge Dora Orak for their assistance.

Sandbox Profiles

We would like to acknowledge Rosyna Keller of Totally Not Malicious Software for their assistance.

Transparency

We would like to acknowledge Wojciech Regula of SecuRing (wojciechregula.blog), 要乐奈 for their assistance.

WebKit

We would like to acknowledge Bob Lord, Matthew Liang, Mike Cardwell of grepular.com for their assistance.

Wi-Fi

We would like to acknowledge Aobo Wang (@M4x_1997), Csaba Fitzl (@theevilbit) of Kandji, Noah Gregory (wts.dev), Wojciech Regula of SecuRing (wojciechregula.blog), an anonymous researcher for their assistance.