CVE-2025-24091 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting Apple iPadOS, where a malicious app could impersonate system notifications to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability stems from insufficient entitlement restrictions on sensitive notifications, allowing an app without proper privileges to generate deceptive system notifications. This can lead to resource exhaustion or system instability, effectively causing the device to become unresponsive or crash. Apple has addressed this issue by requiring restricted entitlements for sensitive notifications in iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and iPadOS 17.7.3. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality or integrity but solely affects availability. The CVSS 3.1 score is 5.5 (medium), with the vector AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H indicating local attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, user interaction needed, unchanged scope, no confidentiality or integrity impact, and high impact on availability. No known exploits are reported in the wild as of the publication date. The vulnerability is related to CWE-290 (Authentication Bypass by Spoofing). The affected versions are unspecified but presumably all iPadOS versions prior to the patched releases are vulnerable.

For European organizations, the primary impact of this vulnerability is the potential disruption of iPadOS devices used within corporate environments, especially where iPads are employed for critical business functions, presentations, or customer interactions. A denial-of-service could interrupt workflows, cause loss of productivity, and require device reboots or resets. While no data breach or integrity compromise is involved, the availability impact could affect sectors relying on iPads for point-of-sale, healthcare, education, or field operations. The requirement for user interaction limits automated exploitation but does not eliminate risk, particularly in environments where users may install unvetted apps or are targeted by social engineering. The lack of known exploits reduces immediate risk but patching remains essential to prevent future abuse. Organizations with large deployments of iPadOS devices should consider this vulnerability in their risk assessments and incident response planning.

1. Ensure all iPadOS devices are updated promptly to iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, or iPadOS 17.7.3 or later, which contain the fix requiring restricted entitlements for sensitive notifications. 2. Implement strict app installation policies using Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions to restrict installation to vetted and trusted apps only, minimizing the risk of malicious apps causing DoS. 3. Educate users about the risks of installing apps from untrusted sources and the importance of scrutinizing system notifications, especially those requesting interaction. 4. Monitor device performance and logs for signs of abnormal notification activity or crashes that could indicate exploitation attempts. 5. Employ network-level controls to limit app communication if possible, reducing the attack surface. 6. For high-security environments, consider restricting local user permissions to prevent installation of unauthorized apps and enforce usage of managed app stores only. 7. Maintain an inventory of iPadOS versions in use to identify and prioritize devices needing updates.