About the security content of watchOS 5.3

This document describes the security content of watchOS 5.3.

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

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watchOS 5.3

Released 22 July 2019

Bluetooth

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to intercept Bluetooth traffic (Key Negotiation of Bluetooth – KNOB)

Description: An input validation issue existed in bluetooth. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2019-9506: Daniele Antonioli of SUTD, Singapore, Dr. Nils Ole Tippenhauer of CISPA, Germany and Prof. Kasper Rasmussen of University of Oxford, England

The changes for this issue mitigate CVE-2020-10135.

Entry added 13 August 2019, updated 25 June 2020

Core Data

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: a remote attacker may be able to leak memory

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

CVE-2019-8646: natashenka of Google Project Zero

Core Data

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution

Description: A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management.

CVE-2019-8647: Samuel Groß and natashenka of Google Project Zero

Core Data

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A remote attacker may be able to cause unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2019-8660: Samuel Groß and natashenka of Google Project Zero

Digital Touch

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: a remote attacker may be able to leak memory

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

CVE-2019-8624: natashenka of Google Project Zero

FaceTime

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2019-8648: Tao Huang and Tielei Wang of Team Pangu

Heimdal

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An issue existed in Samba that may allow attackers to perform unauthorised actions by intercepting communications between services

Description: This issue was addressed with improved checks to prevent unauthorised actions.

CVE-2018-16860: Isaac Boukris and Andrew Bartlett of the Samba Team and Catalyst

Image Processing

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Processing a maliciously crafted image may lead to a denial of service

Description: A denial-of-service issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2019-8668: an anonymous researcher

Entry added Tuesday, 8 October 2019

Kernel

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An application may be able to read restricted memory

Description: A validation issue was addressed with improved input sanitisation.

CVE-2019-8633: Zhuo Liang of Qihoo 360 Vulcan Team

Entry added 17 September 2019

libxslt

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A remote attacker may be able to view sensitive information

Description: A stack overflow was addressed with improved input validation.

CVE-2019-13118: found by OSS-Fuzz

Messages

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Users removed from an iMessage conversation may still be able to alter state

Description: This issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2019-8659: Ryan Kontos (@ryanjkontos), Will Christensen of University of Oregon

Messages

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A remote attacker may cause an unexpected application termination

Description: A denial-of-service issue was addressed with improved validation.

CVE-2019-8665: Michael Hernandez of XYZ Marketing

Quick Look

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: An attacker may be able to trigger a use-after-free in an application deserialising an untrusted NSDictionary

Description: This issue was addressed with improved checks.

CVE-2019-8662: natashenka and Samuel Groß of Google Project Zero

Siri

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: a remote attacker may be able to leak memory

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

CVE-2019-8646: natashenka of Google Project Zero

UIFoundation

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Parsing a maliciously crafted office document may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

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

CVE-2019-8657: riusksk of VulWar Corp working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative

Wallet

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: A user may inadvertently complete an in-app purchase while on the lock screen

Description: the issue was addressed with improved UI handling.

CVE-2019-8682: Jeff Braswell (JeffBraswell.com)

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to universal cross-site scripting

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

CVE-2019-8658: akayn working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative

WebKit

Available for: Apple Watch Series 1 and later

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: Multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved memory handling.

CVE-2019-8669: akayn working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative

CVE-2019-8672: Samuel Groß of Google Project Zero

CVE-2019-8676: Soyeon Park and Wen Xu of SSLab at Georgia Tech

CVE-2019-8683: lokihardt of Google Project Zero

CVE-2019-8684: lokihardt of Google Project Zero

CVE-2019-8685: akayn, Dongzhuo Zhao working with ADLab of Venustech, Ken Wong (@wwkenwong) of VXRL, Anthony Lai (@darkfloyd1014) of VXRL, and Eric Lung (@Khlung1) of VXRL

CVE-2019-8688: Insu Yun of SSLab at Georgia Tech

CVE-2019-8689: lokihardt of Google Project Zero

Additional recognition

MobileInstallation

We would like to acknowledge Dany Lisiansky (@DanyL931) for their assistance.

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