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Mallory
Medium

Sensitive user data access race condition in Apple Storage

IdentifiersCVE-2026-28996CWE-362· Concurrent Execution using Shared…

CVE-2026-28996 is a race condition vulnerability in Apple's Storage component. Apple states that the issue could allow an app to access sensitive user data and that it was addressed with additional validation. The vulnerability affects multiple Apple platforms, including iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5, macOS Sequoia 15.7.7, macOS Sonoma 14.8.7, macOS Tahoe 26.5, tvOS 26.5, visionOS 26.5, and watchOS 26.5. Publicly available advisory text does not provide further technical detail on the specific code path or function beyond identifying the bug class as a race condition in Storage.

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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.

A successful exploit may allow a locally running application to access sensitive user data that it should not be permitted to read. Based on Apple's advisory language, the primary impact is confidentiality loss rather than code execution or privilege escalation. The issue appears to weaken isolation or authorization guarantees around Storage operations, enabling unauthorized data exposure to an app.

Mitigation

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

If immediate patching is not possible, reduce exposure by limiting installation and execution of untrusted or unnecessary apps, enforcing application allowlisting where feasible, and restricting access to sensitive data through MDM and platform privacy controls. Because the issue is exploitable by an app, minimizing local app execution opportunities is the most relevant interim mitigation. No vendor-provided workaround beyond updating is available in the supplied content.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Apply the vendor fixes released by Apple: iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, macOS Sequoia 15.7.7, macOS Sonoma 14.8.7, macOS Tahoe 26.5, tvOS 26.5, visionOS 26.5, and watchOS 26.5. Apple indicates the issue was fixed by adding additional validation in the affected Storage component.
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
AppleIosoperating_system
AppleIpadosoperating_system
AppleIphone Osoperating_system
AppleMacosoperating_system
AppleTvosoperating_system
AppleVisionosoperating_system
AppleWatchosoperating_system

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What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

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Associated malware

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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 activity5

Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.