Essential reason why you should update your iPhone to iOS 18.3.1 immediately

If you've not already updated your iPhone to iOS 18.3.1 then you will definitely want to get on that as soon as possible, as Apple have pushed a fix that deals with a dangerous flaw in the system.

One of the most important aspects of keeping your phone and other gadgets up to date is ensuring that they're as secure as possible. Not only do companies constantly refresh the general cybersecurity of their devices, but they'll also often push forward bug fixes that would have otherwise caused a problem.

There are plenty of different things that you need to keep watch of in order to stay safe online, including fake nefarious QR codes and spoofed calls that fooled even an expert, yet one particular recent flaw allowed hackers to access your Apple data without any pushback from your phone's security.

Updating to the latest iOS version will help you avoid a major security breach from occurring (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

As reported by Mashable, the catch here is that the person trying to access your data would need to physically obtain your iPhone, but that is obviously very common when considering theft, and would give these criminals a means of bypassing the security measures that you've put in place.

Apple's official statement on the iOS 18.3.1 update reads as follows: "A physical attack may disable USB Restricted Mode on a locked device. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals."

Thankfully the new update has cleansed this issue, ensuring that it won't be a problem going forward, so make sure that you jump on it and get it installed as soon as possible just in case.

There remains large parts of the iPhone community that are still resisting iOS 18 as a whole though, with grievances surrounding changes to popular apps and degraded battery life. This has led to it being labelled the 'worst update ever' by many, despite the return of some popular features.

Experts are urging you to install iOS 18.3.1 despite any grievances you might have with the overall update push (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Beyond this, some experts have also cast doubt over the security of Apple Intelligence - the company's AI push - indicating worries that it can access your data at an OS level and also provide concerning misinformation in the process.

Something like the aforementioned security issue that has now been fixed does largely overshadow any other grievances though, and you'll likely want to put up with some frustrations and turn off features like Apple Intelligence in order to gain the necessary bug fixes that'll keep your phone safe in the long run.