iOS 12 End of Life Date
iOS 12 end-of-life date, support status, and CVE risk. Data reconciled from official vendor documentation and endoflife.date at every build; the source of each date is on the product page.
iOS 12 was released on September 17, 2018 and support ended on January 26, 2026 — a supported lifespan of 7 years and 4 months, longer than the 1 year and 1 month median for iOS releases. The last patch it will ever receive is 12.5.8, published January 26, 2026 — on the day support ended. It has been without security patches for 8 months. 1 newer iOS release has shipped since.
What does iOS 12 end of life mean?
When iOS 12 reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches for this version. CVEs discovered after the EOL date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database with no patch available. Exploit code frequently appears on GitHub within days of disclosure.
The CVE blind spot: A CVE-based scan does not show the ongoing accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software versions. Some scanners flag unsupported versions of common products, but coverage varies, and none of them give you the date in advance. Running iOS 12 past its EOL date creates a growing attack surface that a clean scan result does not rule out.
Migrate to iOS 27 or implement compensating controls — network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, restricted access — while migration is underway.