Threats / Apple / CVE-2023-41061

CVE-2023-41061 · EUVD no mirror located · GCVE no mirror located Verified 2026-09-19

Apple iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS vulnerability

Apple iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS contain a validation issue in Wallet that allows maliciously crafted attachments to achieve code execution. The vulnerability was exploited in the wild and chained with CVE-2023-41064.

Verdict

Today item — known-exploited.

A validation bypass in Wallet's attachment handling enables remote code execution on affected Apple devices. Active exploitation in the wild demonstrates practical threat; chaining with a second vulnerability suggests coordinated attack chains targeting iOS ecosystems.

CISA KEV Yes · 2023-09-11⁴EPSS 0.03778 (verify live)⁵CVSS 7.8 (CISA)³CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: total³

Is it exploitable?

— the evidence, ranked above the score

Reported exploitation

14 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.

citizenlab.ca ↗docs.google.com ↗support.apple.com ↗support.apple.com ↗Confirmed

Exploited in the wild

Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-09-11).

CISA KEV ↗Confirmed

Probability (EPSS)

EPSS 0.03778 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.

FIRST EPSS ↗High

Severity / affected

CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Apple, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.

CISA-ADP ↗Reported

CISA SSVC (triage disposition)

Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.

CISA-ADP ↗Reported

Currency of the record

CISA added this to its KEV catalog 4 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.

CISA KEV ↗CVE.org ↗Reported

Who’s exploiting it?

— attribution turns risk into urgency

Attribution not established

No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.

Why it matters

— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board

Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1

Attacker

Craft a malicious attachment designed to bypass Wallet validation checks.

Business

User device becomes compromised with arbitrary code execution capability.

Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2

Attacker

Chain this vulnerability with CVE-2023-41064 to escalate privileges or expand attack surface.

Business

Attacker gains persistent or elevated access across iOS, iPadOS, or watchOS ecosystems.

Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3

Attacker

Distribute malicious attachments via email, messaging, or web to reach target users.

Business

Mass compromise of user devices and potential data exfiltration or lateral movement.

What to do

— defensible action

Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.¹

Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.

Coverage & confidence

— what we know, and what we don’t

Established (cited)

KEV listing (CISA)

EPSS probability (FIRST)

14 reported-exploitation source(s)

CVSS 7.8 — CISA-assigned (CVE.org ADP)

CISA SSVC triage disposition (CVE.org ADP)

Catalogued by apple (CNA)

Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden

No EUVD / GCVE mirror in feed — single-authority dependency for the identifier.

EPSS & exposure are time-varying; verify live at the source.

Threat-actor attribution not established from feed data — absence of a name is not absence of compromise.

No finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.

Disclosure & credit²

Catalogued by appleCNA

Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.

Found an error? Propose a correction.

A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source, gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the correction convention and our identity npub1j7gt9ky7sfcrjn8jjee6693dkzvk4rahs0fk2suu7968dfns62zs3mqm3y.

With JavaScript off: publish a signed kind 1111 Nostr event tagging ["r", "https://basicsecurity.net/threat/cve-2023-41061.html"], ["v", "sha256:878b2cb2ef8f589e77a693e00d6e0a15f1178d2c7a9b438ec4d5faf2e620e72d"] (the record version), plus ["src", "<your source URL>"] and ["t", "correction"], per the correction convention. Our identity: npub1j7gt9ky7sfcrjn8jjee6693dkzvk4rahs0fk2suu7968dfns62zs3mqm3y. Cite-or-die: an event with no src is a coverage finding, not a proposal.