On September 10, 2025, during its autumn product unveiling event, Apple revealed that it would be introducing the 'Memory Integrity Enforcement' (MIE) security mechanism across four brand - new models: the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air. This innovative feature is an enhanced iteration of Arm's Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) technology. It operates by discreetly assigning unique tags to each memory block. During hardware access operations, the system meticulously verifies whether the tags match. Through this process, it effectively thwarts spyware attacks that exploit memory corruption vulnerabilities, like the notorious Pegasus spyware from the NSO Group.

The development of the MIE feature was a long - term endeavor, involving five years of collaborative research on both hardware and software fronts. Its primary objectives are to significantly raise the cost for attackers, diminish the reliability of their attacks, and ultimately safeguard the device security of high - risk individuals, including journalists, dissidents, and corporate executives.