A new exploit has been patched by Apple for iOS devices – the iOS 14.8 update fixes the vulnerability that the ‘Pegusus‘ spyware uses.
Updating your iOS device is easy if you have Wi-Fi, but if you only have cellular, you’ll see a message saying ‘This update requires a Wi-Fi network connection to download’.
If you have access to another device, you can hotspot your iOS device to that and run the update. If you don’t, there’s another trick you can do to allow downloading the update over cellular:
How to update iOS over cellular
- Go to Settings
- Go to General
- Go to Software Update
- The screen should say you need to be connected to Wi-Fi and the ‘Download and Install’ option greyed o
- Go back to General
- Go to Date & Time
- Turn off Automatic Time
- Set Month three months ahead (right now that would be from October to December)
- Go back to General
- Go to Software Update
- Press ‘Download and Install’
- While that runs, Go to General
- Go to Date & Time
- Turn on Automatic Time
Applies To: iOS
It’s worth noting that I tested going a year ahead, and the update wouldn’t download, but 3 months ahead did work.
I believe this is design by Apple to avoid people downloading large amounts of data over their mobile plan, but the updates get to an age where Apple deem them critical, and it’s then better to get the update over cellular than not at all.
I hope Apple address this properly and have a toggle on the screen to just choose to download the update over cellular, with a warning about high data usage (iOS 14.8 is almost 1GB).