iPhone Spyware Exploits Obscure Chip Feature, Targets Researchers

Operation Triangulation is a sophisticated APT campaign, active since 2019, that leveraged zero-click iMessage zero-day vulnerabilities and an obscure Apple SoC hardware feature to bypass kernel memory protections and install the TriangleDB spyware on iPhones (targeting Kaspersky researchers). Multiple in-the-wild zero-days (including CVE-2023-38606 and CVE-2023-41990) were chained with hardware MMIO register abuse to achieve remote code execution, prompting Apple to release security updates for several CVEs.