Stay updated on the latest in information security flaws. Explore news, insights, and analysis on vulnerabilities affecting digital safety.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
A flaw is a defect in software, hardware, system design, or configuration that causes unintended behavior. In security reporting, the term usually means a weakness that could violate confidentiality, integrity, or availability when reached through a particular interface, input, privilege, or operating condition. Not every flaw is exploitable, and exploitability depends on factors such as exposure, authentication requirements, affected versions, and available mitigations.
Flaws matter because they can create attack paths in applications, operating systems, devices, APIs, or administrative settings. Security teams assess their severity and exposure, prioritize remediation, apply patches or configuration changes, and use isolation or access controls when immediate fixes are unavailable. Code review, testing, vulnerability scanning, and monitoring can reveal flaws across the development and operational lifecycle. Reports should distinguish a confirmed vulnerability from a theoretical defect and provide enough technical detail to support validation without unnecessarily enabling exploitation.
Without even asking for permissions, the newly discovered 'SiriSpy' flaw in Apple's iOS Bluetooth access could allow someone to access user interactions with Siri and keyboard-dictation audio.
Even if the security bug is not another Heartbleed, prepare like it might be, they note — it has potentially sprawling ramifications.
A pair of Microsoft bugs allow cyberattackers to bypass native Windows Internet download security, says former CERT CC researcher who discovered the flaws.
Two flaws in the popular developer cloud platform show how weaknesses in authorization functions and SaaS flaws can put cloud apps at risk.