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Mallory
Medium

Use-after-free denial of service in Apple Wi‑Fi packet handling

IdentifiersCVE-2026-28994CWE-416· Use After Free

CVE-2026-28994 is a use-after-free vulnerability in Apple’s Wi‑Fi component. Apple states the issue was addressed with improved memory management. The flaw can be triggered via crafted Wi‑Fi packets and affects multiple Apple platforms, including iOS/iPadOS, macOS Sonoma, macOS Sequoia, macOS Tahoe, tvOS, and watchOS. The available advisory text indicates the vulnerable condition is in Wi‑Fi packet handling rather than a higher-level application component.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

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Impact

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

Successful exploitation may allow an attacker in a privileged network position to cause a denial-of-service condition, resulting in unexpected app, process, or system instability/termination depending on platform and code path. The provided content does not state code execution or information disclosure for this CVE; the documented impact is denial of service via crafted Wi‑Fi traffic.

Mitigation

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

Until patches are applied, reduce exposure to untrusted Wi‑Fi environments and attacker-controlled wireless networks. Prefer trusted/segmented wireless infrastructure, restrict proximity to hostile wireless environments where feasible, and prioritize patching devices that may connect to untrusted Wi‑Fi. No vendor-specified workaround is provided in the content.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Apply the vendor fixes provided by Apple. The issue is fixed in iOS 18.7.9 and iPadOS 18.7.9, iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5, macOS Sequoia 15.7.7, macOS Sonoma 14.8.7, macOS Tahoe 26.5, tvOS 26.5, and watchOS 26.5.
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
AppleWatchosoperating_system

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

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.