Apple releases iOS 26.5.2 with security updates

Apple on Monday released software updates for iPhone and iPad users.

The updates, iOS 26.5.2 and iPadOS 26.5.2, address security vulnerabilities in the kernel, the core of the operating system, the WebKit browser engine, and other components.

The updates are available for the iPhone 11 and later; iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later); iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later); iPad Air (3rd generation and later); iPad (8th generation and later); and iPad mini (5th generation and later).

Apple told Reuters on Monday it was adapting to ​the reality that, given the ability of artificial intelligence ​to speed the development of malicious hacking tools, it ⁠needed to reduce the time between when updates were first ​made public and when they were put into customers' hands.

The ​shift marks a notable change in Apple's longstanding practice of packaging security fixes with broader software releases, an acknowledgment that AI is compressing the ​window attackers need to exploit known flaws.

Unless security experts discover ​a hacking campaign targeting a previously unknown software flaw, Apple usually releases security ‌updates ⁠as part of a move from one version of iOS to the next, for example from the currently available version - 26.5 - to the next planned update, 26.6. In the interim, developers and ​other testers trial ​the next ⁠update to iron out any kinks.

The company said that, instead, the latest round of security updates ​were being made available to everyone ahead of ​the ⁠wider release of 26.6.

It said that while there was no evidence that any of the newly patched vulnerabilities had been taken ⁠advantage of, ​the time between the point when ​security fixes were first announced and when they were deployed to customers' phones ​needed to be compressed. — Reuters/VBL, GMA News