i know that iphone 7 can’t run ios 16 but they can still get security patches when needed.
better question is ios 15.7.8 even at risk for this security issue?
Yes they are at risk. I don’t think we know yet if there will be a patch. For my iPad mini on iOS 15, I’ve turned off iMessage on it (it’s wifi only).
It seems to be a very critical flaw so I think there’s a good chance they will put out a security patch for iOS 15.
Apple, in particular, seems a favorite target of NSO. And Apple seems intent on winning their game of whack-a-mole. I would expect them to patch as far back as justifiable and feasible.
Maybe it will get it, I remember 2-3 years ago, they even updated all the way to the iPhone 4 for a security patch
Apple patches older releases for zero day bugs. If there is no patch, then usually it means the exploit doesn’t work on that older release.