Your iPhone or Mac may be at risk.
A CISCO Telos researcher found Macs and iOS devices are at risk to be hacked through apps like iMessage.
The vulnerabilities in the way the operating systems handle certain image file formats.
These formats are TIFF, OpenEXR, Digital Asset Exchange, and even Bitmap files.
Does that sounds like alphabet soup to you?
Just know that these are popular formats being used.
A malicious image file can execute remote code on certain systems.
So, you might be thinking I make sure I don't open any weird images I find.
The problem is certain applications like iMessage automatically render images by default.
Remote code execution could also be achieved through MMS messages, attachments, and web pages.
The researchers said that the vulnerability affects OS 10.11.5 and iOS 9.3.2 and all other previous versions.
Details on how file format can be used to take over a device were also published.
So what's the best way to stay safe?
Make sure your Mac and iOS device are running the latest versions of their operating systems.
On a Mac, click the apple on the menu bar, and click 'About this Mac'.
If you're running 10.11.6, Six you're good.
On iOS go to Settings, General, then About.
Check the version.
If you're running 9.3.2 or below head back to software update and get downloaded.
That's it for this Tech News update.
I'm Iyaz Zaptar, and you can stay on top of the biggest stories at cnet.com/update.
