Illinois Apple Users Urged to Update iPhones Now Amid “Sophisticated” Security Threat

Apple announced this week that they have fallen victim to a 'sophisticated' data breach that puts iPhone and iPad owners at risk.

Major Threat For Illinois iPhone Users

For the record, I am an iPhone and Apple lover, primarily because I have owned many models over the years, and they seem to run better and last longer that other  phones/devices I have owned in the past. (I still have and use an iPad mini circa 2012!)

Currently we have at least 5 Apple products in our home, so to see the news that Apple has had a "significant" security breach effecting iPhones and iPads is deeply concerning.

According to Tech Radar;

In a security advisory, the company (Apple) said it was releasing iOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 18.3.1 to address CVE-2025-24200, a flaw plaguing many of its iPhones and iPads which could allow a malicious actor to run a “physical attack” that disables USB Restricted Mode on a locked device.

Umm...ok. What is "USB Restricted Mode" and what kind of physical attack are they talking about here?!?

How the Apple Security Breach Effects Illinois Users

Let's start with figuring out what the USB Restricted Mode is. According to Tech Radar;

USB Restricted Mode is a security feature that prevents data transfer through the Lightning (or USB-C) port when the device has been locked for more than one hour. This helps protect against hacking tools that try to bypass passcodes or extract data via USB connections.

 

Yikes! Was Apple's security breach as scary as it sounds? Kinda.

An article from the New York Post explained the threat like this;

a security breach that could allow other parties to bypass passcodes and pull data from locked devices.

Ok, that definitely sounds bad. What should we do now?

Update your iPhones and iPads IMMEDIATELY.

Updates for Macs, Apple watches and Vision Pros have also been issued, but Apple has not said any of those devices were effected by the security breach...yet.