According to cybersecurity researcher Paradigm Shift, Apple devices using A12 and A13 chips—including several iPhone models—are vulnerable to a new exploit the research team calls usbliter8. Usbliter8 leverages multiple bugs in the device and USB controller hardware in order to hijack the startup process and run custom code before iOS loads. 

The bad news is, since this is a hardware issue, Apple can’t release a patch to prevent bad actors from exploiting it. But the good news? Usbliter8 only works if the attacker has physical access to your device.  The researchers still believe it’s worth it to share the exploit publicly in order to “highlight the real-world impact of these hardware flaws.” But as long as you don’t let anyone plug any random, suspicious looking USB drives into your iPhone, you probably have nothing to worry about.