Apple said it It found no evidence of cyber attackers exploiting recently discovered vulnerabilities in the Mail app for iPhone and iPad, software used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The American company is responding to claims by cyber security company ZecOps that software flaws may have allowed hackers to infiltrate iPhones and other iOS devices for more than a year. Apple launched an investigation and said in a statement that the email issues were not in themselves enough to allow cyber attackers to bypass built-in security, adding that it will issue a solution soon.

“We have thoroughly investigated the investigator’s report and, based on the information provided, we have concluded that these problems do not pose an immediate risk to our users,” said the Cupertino, California company. “The researcher identified three problems in Mail, but by themselves they are insufficient to bypass iPhone and iPad security protections, and we have found no evidence that they were used against clients.”

San Francisco-based ZecOps said Wednesday the vulnerability can be exploited when an iPhone or iPad opens a specially crafted email in the app. The flaws may have been used in attacks by “an advanced threat operator,” it said in a report. The victims included “people from a Fortune 500 organization in North America” ​​and “an airline executive in Japan,” as well as “a journalist in Europe,” ZecOps said.

The vulnerabilities may have been exploited by attackers since January 2018, according to ZecOps. The bugs were publicly revealed when Apple released a beta update, and attackers “will likely use the time until a patch is available to attack as many devices as possible,” ZecOps predicted. – (c) 2020 Bloomberg LP