[vitus]

> the disabling of the ability to update iOS.

This is done by the malware.

Indeed, the identified fix involves a factory reset and upgrading iOS to prevent the malware from taking over again.

That provides a simple explanation for why the phones are running such an old version: because they've been infected and unable to be updated for that entire time.

[brookst]

I guess execs at security firms are no better than average people when it comes to noticing that their phones never got the various new features (end emojis!) from the last year of OS updates.