Check your iPhone software today.
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This is not optional. Apple warns that iPhone attacks are underway and has released fixes to keep users safe. The bad news is that hundreds of millions of those users are now at risk. Check your iPhone now. And if you need to reboot, do so immediately.
Go to Settings > General > Software Update. If your iPhone is not running either iOS 26.2 or iOS 18.7.3, go to Settings > General > Shut Down and power the device off. Or you can press and hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears,” Apple says. If that doesn’t work, you can force it to restart.
Given the latest data says 50% of all eligible iPhone users have not yet upgraded to secure those fixes, the situation has now become urgent. Resistance to the iOS 26 upgrade has been exacerbated by Apple’s decision to make the fixes available only to iPhones or newer that have upgraded. Sticking to iOS 18 is no longer possible.
A reboot will kill any spyware running on your iPhone. At least until the spyware reloads, either because it’s automatically persistent or because you repeat whatever action started the software running on your iPhone in the first place.
While it might seem that because Apple’s warning that attacks are highly targeted, most users are unaffected, that’s a dangerous defense. The WebKit exploits behind the latest attacks will become more widely deployed, targeting ever more users.
You should really upgrade if you’re an iOS 26 holdout. If not, you must restart your iPhone weekly — at least until you update to either of those two versions of iOS. Until Apple clarifies iOS 26 upgrade numbers, we will not know for sure how close the analyst data is to the real numbers. But worry not, regular reboots are a good idea anyway.
