iPhone Upgrade?

By notta
in iPhone - iOS/tvOS/watchOS

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notta

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I currently have the iPhone 6+ and honestly it's been the best phone I've ever owned. The battery life is fantastic.  I don't install a lot of apps and mostly use it for email and bank alerts. I'm not one of those go out and buy a new phone to have the latest and greatest.

 

Well today I'm reading people should really upgrade because of these latest zero days. Apple released 12.5.4 in June, but it looks like there's not going to be a 12.5.5 to address these current vulnerabilities. I planned on buying the next version of the iPhone in the fall so I would hate to purchase a new version now and the new version comes out in September. Buying an older version off Ebay or something to hold me over also seems wasteful as well.

 

What is the attack vector for the latest exploits? Could I just turn off specific features to hold me over until September? I don't do stupid stuff like open documents in emails but if it's as simple as getting a phone call or a text message and you're instantly infected then there's nothing I can do to protect against that I will be forced to upgrade. So what is the attack vector? Thanks.

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Grand Master

Sikh

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Unless you are specifically targeted by the Zero day, you will be fine. Also Apple will most likely release a iOS 12 update to patch this. They have done before if the vulnerability is THAT bad and puts customers at risk. They just wont talk about it or commit to it cause it takes resources to go back generations and update software. They also look at active users and all that before making their decision.

Honestly I think you can wait until september / october for the new phone.

EDIT: I just realized I assumed you were talking about the Pegasus zero day with iMessage. That one costs a lot of money and you NEED to be targeted for it , so you're fine.

As for this zero day, you should be fine because of how you use your phone. Unless you started going to sketchy/unquestionable websites all of a sudden, you'll be fine

Edited by Sikh
Grand Master

+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹

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You have an iPhone 6+ and don't need the "latest and greatest" but you think should wait to get the new iPhone? LOL I think you will be just fine with the current iPhone 12 . I wouldn't wait if your phone is not getting security updates anymore. You don't know what new exploit will hit tomorrow.

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Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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On 28/07/2021 at 05:58, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

You have an iPhone 6+ and don't need the "latest and greatest" but you think should wait to get the new iPhone? LOL I think you will be just fine with the current iPhone 12 . I wouldn't wait if your phone is not getting security updates anymore. You don't know what new exploit will hit tomorrow.

It's perfectly reasonable to be content with an older model of phone because it does what you need, and yet want to hold off on buying a new device until the latest model comes out...

Grand Master

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On 30/07/2021 at 03:17, Nick H. said:

It's perfectly reasonable to be content with an older model of phone because it does what you need, and yet want to hold off on buying a new device until the latest model comes out...

How is that relevant to the discussion? He is still is going to move to another phone. The OP post was a concern about no security updates. It's NOT perfectly reasonable to use a phone that is not getting security updates.

 

On 30/07/2021 at 07:12, notta said:

My thought process is that if I'm going to be forced to upgrade my perfectly good working phone I'm going to get the newest model where I can receive security updates for the longest period of time.

You are not concerned about no security updates now? LOL My point was is you have an old phone so the current IPhone would be a huge upgrade for you. You are not going to notice any real difference between an IPhone 12 and 13. I am not sure how you went from a concern about zero days to continuing on without security updates? You  getting one more year of security updates five years from now seems to be a case of worrying about the wrong thing. I will add there is some good deals out there right now for the iPhone 12.

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notta

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You are not concerned about no security updates now? LOL My point was is you have an old phone so the current IPhone would be a huge upgrade for you. You are not going to notice any real difference between an IPhone 12 and 13. I am not sure how you went from a concern about zero days to continuing on without security updates? You  getting one more year of security updates five years from now seems to be a case of worrying about the wrong thing. I will add there is some good deals out there right now for the iPhone 12.

Yes security is my number 1 priority. Number 1.  I don't use the camera, could count on one hand the number of pictures I've taken with it in 10 years. I don't use many of the apps especially not gaming. There are some apps I use such as Shazam, Spotify, Waze, etc. Some apps are starting to complain that they can't be used because I'm running an older version of IOS.

 

My original question was what is the attack vector. Sikh responded and stated that the concern was web browsing malicious sites. Since I don't browse malicious sites on my phone I figured I could hold off 1-2 months for the release of the new iPhone 13. Because there are multiple vulnerabilities in the news about Pegasus and the CVE-2021-30807 Zero-Day I was a little confused about how the OS is vulnerable. My concern was if I could receive a SMS or an iMessage and bang my system is exploited than that's unacceptable and would warrant an upgrade right away. If that was the case and I could disable SMS and iMessage until  the iPhone 13 comes out I would think about going that route while not ideal. I was just trying to understand what the exploits were. Never realized I would get people so fired up about my confusion.

 

As for the 12 vs the13. Did I give the impression that money is an issue? I never upgraded because most features I don't use and I was receiving security updates which I have stated is my number one priority. Having an app that I can use as a tape measure is not all that important to me. So, I never felt the need to upgrade. With that being said since we're 1-2 months from the new phone being released my thought process was to get the latest phone being released since I have milked this phone beyond what Apple wants it to be milked. Yes 1 year of updates is 1 year of extra updates to me as you can see. You're right in that I could get the 12 for a cheaper price and I could probably get it even cheaper when the 13 comes out but as stated money is not the issue here. Just trying to understand the current threats.

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