CVE-2026-39869

Vulnerability

Overview

CVE-2026-39869 is a denial-of-service vulnerability affecting Apple's media processing across multiple platforms. The root cause is an out-of-bounds read that occurs when handling a maliciously crafted audio stream within a media file. Apple addressed the issue by improving bounds checking in the affected code [1][2][3].

Exploitation

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by delivering a specially crafted media file to the target device. Processing the audio stream within that file triggers the out-of-bounds read, which may terminate the process. No authentication or user interaction beyond opening the file is required, making it a low-complexity attack vector [1][2].

Impact

Successful exploitation leads to a denial-of-service condition, causing the application or system process to crash. The impact is limited to availability; there is no indication of data corruption or privilege escalation from this issue [1][2][3].

Mitigation

Apple has released patches for the affected operating systems including iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, macOS Tahoe 26.5, tvOS 26.5, visionOS 26.5, watchOS 26.5, and older OS versions such as iOS 18.7.9 and macOS Sequoia 15.7.7. Users should update their devices to the latest available software to remediate the vulnerability [1][2][3][4].