High

Denial-of-service in Apple iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

IdentifiersCVE-2023-38603CWE-20

CVE-2023-38603 is an Apple vulnerability affecting iPhone 8 and later, multiple supported iPad models, iOS 16.6, iPadOS 16.6, and macOS Ventura 13.5. Apple’s advisory states that the issue was fixed with improved checks and that a remote user may be able to cause a denial-of-service. The available source material does not identify the affected component, code path, or vulnerable function beyond Apple’s generic statement about improved checks.

For your environment

Are you exposed to this one?

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation may allow a remote attacker to trigger a denial-of-service condition, resulting in service disruption such as a crash, hang, or other loss of availability on the affected device or application. No evidence in the provided material indicates code execution, privilege escalation, or data disclosure for this CVE.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, reduce exposure to untrusted remote input and network interactions where feasible, and use standard hardening and monitoring controls to detect repeated crash conditions or service instability. However, the provided material does not include any Apple-specific workaround or configuration-based mitigation for this CVE, so patching is the primary mitigation.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Apply the vendor-provided fixes by updating affected systems to iOS 16.6, iPadOS 16.6, and macOS Ventura 13.5 or later versions that include Apple’s security corrections for CVE-2023-38603.

PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.

VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType

AppleIpadosoperating_system

AppleIphone Osoperating_system

AppleMacosoperating_system

Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

2 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.

2 SOURCESView more in app

apple supportNews

Jan 25, 2026

About the security content of iOS 16.6 and iPadOS 16.6 - Apple Support

A denial-of-service issue reachable by a remote user; addressed with improved checks.

apple supportNews

Jan 19, 2026

Informazioni sui contenuti di sicurezza di iOS 16.6 e iPadOS 16.6 - Supporto Apple (IT)

Vulnerabilità sfruttabile da remoto che può causare crash applicazione o esecuzione di codice arbitrario; corretta con controlli migliori.

What this page doesn’t show

The version that knows your environment.

This page is what’s public. Mallory adds the parts that aren’t: which of your assets are affected, which adversaries are exploiting it right now, which detections to deploy, and what to do tonight.

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Exposure mapping

Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.

Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity