I just got an update from work that all Apple devices should be updated due to a common exploit that can allow a hacker to take control of them.

All of our MacBooks, iPads, iPhones and Apple TV devices are current and can be updated to patch the exploit. However, My wife and I both have the Series 3 GPS Apple Watches and it appears that Apple doesn’t provide updates for them anymore. They still work perfectly fine otherwise.

This caused me to come up with the following questions…

  1. How likely could someone remotely hack our old watches if all our other Apple devices are updated?
  2. If likely, could they use the old watches to access; passwords, iCloud, credit cards, local networks, etc…?
  3. Should I disable our current watches now and get ourselves new ones?
  • grubbster00@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Sounds like a great excuse to get a new watch! As far as being hacked, I think that is very unlikely. They would have to have a route to get into your watch which would probably be through your phone. Just don’t surf the porn sites on your watch and you’ll be fine. :)

  • redavid@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    fwiw, while the Series 3 doesn’t get watchOS versions past 8.x, they have provided security updates for that product as recently as four months ago and i would expect that they’ll continue doing that at least a few more times. it was a Watch that Apple didn’t stop actively selling to people until late 2022.

  • Emotional-Tea-9552@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    It’s not true that Apple does not care about the security patches of Series 3 watches, they have just recently released an update for watchOS 8 this August, 11 months after their last update. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213808

    None of our devices are 100% safe at any time in this world but I don’t think you are at an increased risk because of the Series 3 watches. I have a cyber sec expert in my friend group, they used to show me some terrible exploits that Series 1-2 watches had been vulnerable to in the early days (not anymore!) and those looked terrifying but all in all, but it’s extremely unlikely that S3 watches will be the target of any similar attacks in the future. (In my own opinion based on what I know)

    Just keep your passcode on (I suspect your work profiles already require you to do this anyway) and don’t worry too much about it.

    Look out for any popular iMessage scams though if you have cellular models, at my cellular provider we are dealing with some issues currently that targets the technical phone numbers of watches which work in a way that only the watch receives certain iMessage scams and none of your other Apple devices where you enabled iMessages. However, these are not only targeted at Apple watches but any device that use with a number share SIM card (physical or virtual), but I thought I would mention it since it’s a much more realistic threat these days.