Why upgrade mac operating system install#
The moral of the story? Always install those minor updates. If we all keep our devices updated, hackers will move on to less vulnerable devices.
You may recognize this as the herd mentality. The good news is if enough people install those updates quickly enough, the attackers will move on to the next vulnerability. Patching these is a non-stop endeavor by Apple and other companies. New vulnerabilities are discovered daily. Unfortunately, the bad guys-organized crime, government intelligence agencies, and the like-have the resources to understand and exploit these flaws.īut here’s the thing. They affect nearly all modern computers, regardless of operating system, because they take advantage of a design flaw in the microprocessors. You may have heard about the Meltdown and Spectre hardware vulnerabilities discovered in January 2018. Part of the problem with security vulnerabilities is that they can be astonishingly complex. Exciting times – again not in a good way.
Why upgrade mac operating system update#
This vulnerability one was so bad that Apple pushed Security Update 2017-001 to every affected Mac and rolled the fix into macOS 10.13.2. All they had to do was type root for the username and leave the password field blank. Back in November 2017, it was reported that anyone could gain admin access to any Mac running macOS High Sierra. Things get exciting - and not in a good way - when serious vulnerabilities come to light. Or rather, security is dull as long as it’s present and active. All too often, those prompts come at inconvenient times, although iOS has gotten better about installing during the night, as long as you plug in your iPhone or iPad.
Have you installed all these updates, or have you been procrastinating, tapping that Later link on the iPhone and rejecting your Mac’s notifications? I’m not criticizing I often tap on Remind Me Later. Some of these have been to fix bugs, which is great, but more important, quite a few have been prompted by the need for Apple to address security vulnerabilities. You’ve probably noticed that Apple releases updates to iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS nearly every week.