Apple Accelerates Security Updates to Preempt AI-Powered Exploits

Apple has a new policy in which it has accelerated its release of security updates in response to the speed with which artificial intelligence can develop malicious hacking tools, Reuters reported Monday (June 29).

The company used to package security fixes with its next planned, broader software update, but now it is making such fixes available between the wider updates, according to the report.

Apple told Reuters that it made this change due to security concerns about AI.

According to the report, iOS and iPadOS software updates released Monday demonstrate the new policy. Apple said there was no evidence that the vulnerabilities patched by these updates had been exploited by hackers, per the report.

In its own announcement of today’s release, Apple said: “This update [iOS 26.5.2 and iPadOS 26.5.2] delivers security fixes that were first made available in the iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6 betas.”

Previously, these updates would have been included in the upcoming 26.6 version of the operating system, the Reuters report said.

Monday’s update only has a focus on security, with no new features, and it includes nearly 30 fixes, 9to5Mac reported Monday.

Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in May that AI is reducing the cost and skill required for hacking. It also announced at the time that it had discovered and thwarted an exploit in which a fraudster used an AI model to discover and weaponize a vulnerability.

“As the coding capabilities of AI models advance, we continue to observe adversaries increasingly leverage these tools as expert-level force multipliers for vulnerability research and exploit development, including for zero-day vulnerabilities,” GTIG said in a May 11 blog post. “While these tools empower defensive research, they also lower the barrier for adversaries to reverse-engineer applications and develop sophisticated, AI-generated exploits.”

OpenAI said Friday (June 26) that it is limiting the release of its new GPT-5.6 series AI models to a small group of trusted partners at the request of the U.S. government.

Rival AI startup Anthropic disabled access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models on June 12 in response to a U.S. government export control directive that cited “national security authorities” and called on the company to suspend access to those models by “any foreign national.”