Apple Unveils Major Memory Safety Upgrade in iPhone 17, Air

Apple has introduced Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) in its iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air, marking what the company calls the most significant upgrade to memory safety in consumer operating systems. This advanced security feature, integrated into the custom A19 and A19 Pro chips, aims to block memory corruption exploits commonly used by mercenary spyware like NSO Group's Pegasus, which target high-value individuals through sophisticated zero-click attacks. MIE uses an Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) that assigns unique cryptographic tags to memory blocks, instantly detecting and terminating unauthorized access attempts such as buffer overflows and use-after-free exploits, thereby fundamentally disrupting exploit chains. Unlike optional implementations on other platforms, Apple’s MIE runs always-on, protecting the kernel and over 70 userland processes by default without impacting device performance, thanks to mitigation techniques with virtually zero CPU cost. This security upgrade reflects a five-year engineering effort and is designed to raise the cost and complexity for spyware developers, enhancing privacy and security for all users, including those on older devices receiving partial protections. The move has been recognized by security experts as a major advancement, although some note that no system can be entirely impervious to attacks.