Preface: As of February 2026, Apple has issued urgent security updates—specifically iOS 26.2.1 and iOS 26.2—to patch critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-43529, CVE-2025-14174, and CVE-2025-46285) that were exploited in targeted attacks. These bugs, affecting the WebKit browser engine and Kernel, allow arbitrary code execution and unauthorized root privileges. Users must immediately update to protect their devices.
Background: Adopting 64-bit timestamps means changing how computers store time, replacing 32-bit integers with 64-bit integers to record seconds since the Unix Epoch (Jan 1, 1970). This shift eliminates the “Year 2038 problem,” extending the maximum representable date from January 2038 to over 292 billion years in the future, ensuring long-term system stability and precision.
Apple’s security hardening efforts following vulnerability CVE‑2025‑46285. CVE‑2025‑46285 was a system‑level integer‑overflow vulnerability in Apple platforms. It occurred because 32‑bit timestamps could overflow, and in certain OS internals this overflow allowed a malicious app to gain root privileges. Apple’s official fix for this vulnerability was to “adopt 64‑bit timestamps”, which eliminates the overflow condition entirely on the affected systems.
Vulnerability details: CVE-2025-46285: A Kernel vulnerability allowing apps to gain root privileges, bypassing app sandboxes.
Official announcement: Please refer to the link for more details
https://support.apple.com/en-us/100100
Reference:
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-46285#vulnCurrentDescriptionTitle