Apple has urged customers to update their devices immediately after it was revealed some devices may be vulnerable to security breaches.

Affected devices and models include iPhone models later than the 6S, all iPads running on iPadOS 15 (including models beyond the iPad 5th generation and iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4 and all iPad Pro models), 7th generation iPad touch and Mac computers running MacOS Monterey.

Cyber security experts warn hackers could track users’ location, read messages, view a person’s contacts list and even access their microphone and camera. The vulnerabilities would essentially allow attackers to gain full control of the device, using “maliciously crafted web content”.

Andy Norton, chief cyber risk officer at Armis, said. ‘This clearly has wide reaching implications. Apple products have become a mainstay of everyday life, Facial recognition, banking apps, health data, pretty much everything we hold dear resides on our apple products.  Historically, many people have not updated their apple products for fear of shortening the life span of their devices, that behaviour now must change.’

Apple have released a new iOS 15.6.1, iPadOS 15.6.1 and macOS Monterey 12.5.1 update to fix the problem.