Apple patched critical flaws in macOS Monterey but not in Big Sur nor Catalina Apple last week patched two actively exploited vulnerabilities in macOS Monterey yet has left users of older supported versions of its desktop operating system unprotected. In a blog post on Tuesday, security biz Intego said fixes applied to address CVE-2022-22675 (AppleAVD bug) and CVE-2022-22674 (Intel Graphics Driver bug) …
That update is - buy a new Mac.
That's their business model. But don't remember this when it happens again in a few years time and they decide to not bother updating an "old" OS, regardless of how widely used it is.
They are an absolute shower of bastards. Between Emma mattresses and Apple, it's only Wednesday and all my Zen has gone.
WebKit can be used as a component for displaying HTML content inside other applications. Not all applications that do so will use it. There's also the possibility that Mac OS would open Safari instead of your preferred browser for certain types of resources, meaning that someone could tailor a link to make it open Safari. Your risk is still lower from someone trying an untargeted infection.
I'm not aware of any Mac which will run Catalina and Big Sur but not Monterey so no need to buy a new Mac.
Just hit the update button.
(I understand there are reasons why people can't upgrade such as unsupported software and such and people in this situation have my sympathy)
And claim that 'if it ain't broke, why fix it?'. If someone then points out the significant security implications of running a system which hasn't been patched for years - i.e. very much is 'broke' - they have no answer (and may well not even understand the issue).
Usually tends to be W7 rather than XP now, but the same applies!
> I'm not aware of any Mac which will run Catalina and Big Sur but not Monterey so no need to buy a new Mac.
3rd generation Retina Macbook Pro (Late 2013 / Mid 2014) runs Big Sur but not Monterey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro_(Intel-based)
Officially, these are not supported after macOS Catalina 10.15.7
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)
iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)
iMac (21.5-inch, Early 2013)
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)
Mac mini (Late 2012)
Mac mini Server (Late 2012)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)
Which are all about 9-10 years old.
It is only pretty recently that we would have considered a 9 year old computer to be anything other than utterly obsolete.
The ones I looked at (mid 2012 MacBook Pro and early 2013 MacBook Pro) have Ivy Bridge CPUs, and they are very useable for anything other than gaming. But if you wanted a gaming machine, you wouldn't have bought a Mac.
My "iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)" is still my main home personal computer...Works fine...Big Sur seems to be the end of the OS line for this mostly-NetFlix/email/VirtualBox/YouTube/Udemy-course/Chrome-surfing beast.
With a 2nd screen, it was a great work-via-VPN Terminal/SSH/dashboard-viewing beast monitoring 1,000s of Linux workerBees during my WFH Sys Admin shifts.
That's for Mac OS two versions old. If we consider Big Sur, there are machines stuck with it that are only six years old. Let's consider the MacBook Pro 13-inch from 2014 (discontinued May 2015, so a little under seven years ago). It has a Haswell-series CPU. Now let's consider the MacBook Air that was released in 2020 (the last with an Intel processor). It's a newer chip. Memory-wise, they have the same amount. Storage-wise, the disk interfaces are the same speed and the disk capacity is the same. Processing-wise, the chip has the same number of cores and they benchmark similarly (the single-threaded benchmark is almost exactly equal, whereas the Air gets a slightly higher multithreaded score). True, the older machine does that with a 28W processor and the newer with a 9W one, but that only affects the battery life. In short, there's no technical problem with the older one's performance that prevents it from running the newer OS.
That's not the newest machine that's getting cut off. I used that one to have a valid comparison (had I used the 15-inch laptop that uses a 47W quad-core chip, I could have given you even better proof about the performance issue). The latest machine not to get the update is the MacBook Retina from 2015 (discontinued April 2016), narrowly beating out an iMac. This means that they're only keeping support up for six years before they allow security vulnerabilities to remain deliberately unpatched.
Contrary to your claims, it isn't just now that you would expect someone to use a computer longer than six years. I know people who are still using computers from 2010, and I'm talking about people who run Windows on them and never upgraded any of the internals. For that matter, I also know people using Macs from that long ago, though unlike the Windows people, they're stuck without patches. We all know that, if you make certain updates like installing an SSD and run efficient software, you can exceed that length easily.
It is only pretty recently that we would have considered a 9 year old computer to be anything other than utterly obsolete.
Maybe you have that attitude. Maybe you're a gamer who needs those extra super dooper graphics cards, or maybe you're a micro$oft victim?
Or do you buy machines that barely have enough RAM when they're new?
I'd consider a 20 year old computer obsolete and a 9 year old one ' due for replacement in the next 6 years', if I'm talking desktops.
Case in point, this machine I'm on at the moment, has a Xeon E3-1275, released 2013, still going strong.
My old Turion64-based laptop (2005) is still very usable if plugged in, but I need to class it as pretty much obsolete, but only because of software bloat and it can't take more than 1GB of RAM.
"It is only pretty recently that we would have considered a 9 year old computer to be anything other than utterly obsolete."
Yes -- only since 2014 Intel has managed to produce new chips that provide only marginal improvements for many use cases. My wife gave me her late 2013 iMac 27" after she bought an Apple silicon system. The iMac is only a bit slower than Intel (all core i5) systems purchased in the last 3 years -- not enough that many users would notice. Current Apple silicon systems are very noticeably faster. In my field, that difference means we can start to introduce improvements that were put on hold because the run times would have been excessive.
To be fair, any Mac that will "officially" run 10.14 will also run 12.
Most Macs that will only "officially" run 10.13 will also run 12.
OpenCore Legacy Patcher is your friend.
(Of course, I'm typing this on a 2012 15" MBP running 10.14 and have no intention of downgrading it to anything more recent because I'm unwilling to give up 32-bit software support. I've got other Macs running 12, but this is easily as fast as those newer Macs for what I do.)
"I understand there are reasons why people can't upgrade such as unsupported software and such and people in this situation have my sympathy"
Not just unsupported software. My Epson Stylus PHOTO 1290 A3+ printer still works, but does not even have a driver for Big Sur, so I have to leave one of my computers on an earlier OS, and copy files I want to print across. I upgraded the laptop I use exclusively for internet financials (banking) and other offline stuff when it would no longer support an OS that had a browser compatible with my bank's personal banking interface.
Of course MS is not without fault either, as a friend of mine had a Microsoft webcam he used for baby monitoring which failed on one of the Windows updates a few years ago and he discovered was no longer supported.
Are you sure, a quick Google shows it should have a driver?
I must admit I was looking for a Universal Print Driver like most manufacturers do for Windows (tbh I would recommend as they are normally light weight and include mostly everything needed)
If the driver doesn’t do what you want, it’s possible that Apple CUPS (Common UNIX printing system - cups.org) might work if you don’t need scanning. OpenPrinting lists your printer as supported https://openprinting.github.io/
To enable it, use the terminal command ‘cupsctl WebInterface=yes’, then try ‘man cups’. Then see if you can open http://localhost:631/printers/ in Safari…
I'm not aware of any Mac which will run Catalina and Big Sur but not Monterey so no need to buy a new Mac.
Perhaps you should check before sprouting bullshit? Am typing this on a 13in late 2013 Macbook Pro which is running 11.6.5 but you will find, if you bothered to look, is not in Apple's supported hardware list for 12.
Perhaps that is why you sprout as anonymous idiot.
Anon Coward, you are either uninformed or misinformed.
I am typing this on my (newly-acquired second-hand) iMac (15,1) which has recently been updated from Catalina to Big Sur ... and which cannot run Monterey. It dates from 2014.
Its predecessor (iMac 14,1 from 2013, now decommissioned) could be updated only as far as Catalina.
This post has been deleted by its author
It's not quite that bad: hardware tends to receive OS updates for 5-6 years, which in terms of a business device, is reasonable and better than many Windows PCs, which by that time may still be receiving OS updates from Microsoft but the manufacturer has long since stopped caring.
That said, the policy is somewhat arbitrary and annoying. I have a perfectly good 2010 MacBook Pro with a refurbished battery that, for Apple's own reasons, can't go beyond Lion. So, it's just sitting around waiting to go on ebay, because there is at least still a market for it.
I'm still on Catalina with my 2020 Intel MBP and my reserve 2016 MBP (you have to have a reserve not least because of battery issues with Macs and this one too has a new battry) because I'm waiting for Apple to fix all the problems with their new architecture and merging with IOS. And I also need to have the same basis for hot-swapping, in case of hardware failure.
That the patch for the graphics driver has not been released for the older versions is disgraceful, though I assume Apple will get round to it when it suits. IANAL but I don't think the argument that there is a new version of the OS would really wash here because the new OS comes with new T&Cs.
Have had my nans Windows 10 Dell Laptop be useless after applying an updated, basically would never finish any larger updates as the intel chipset driver were not actually supported after Windows 8.1 (Thanks MS for just popping up upgrade and doing it anyway). Ended up buying a cheap ProBook to replace it in the end.
Ok downvoter maybe I wasn't clear, the machine came with Windows 7 Home, was around 3 years old when Windows 10 was released, auto updated but failed and was in an endless loop (So install via the media creation tool). Same occured every major update, Dell website itself said Windows 10 was not supported. Checking this it appeared to be because of the Intel chipset used, the intel site itself provided drivers for Windows 7 and I believe 8.1, thats it.
There are updates for that model from here...http://dosdude1.com/software.html
They will help you download the OS, see menu bar, and then make an install stick with it. Boot from it, install the OS, then it has a patcher with the checkboxes already checked for your model, which you can alter if you like.
I have used his High Sierra 10.13 patcher on my mid-2009 and it worked fine, but I didn't like being forced to AFS or the early AFS performance and it seemed to use a bit more battery, which I'm often on, so I went back to 10.9.
Honestly the Jony Ive years of MacOS were characterised by poor visual design decisions. I get that these people are all in their elite club, but they do have to answer to customers at least a little bit, thus more ports returning to MBP's.
If they could get away with it, they'd sell a touch screen that grabbed the contents of your mind and uploded that to their cloud, while charging 10k fro the privilege.
That update is - buy a new Mac.
It is. (Well, or one that's less than 7ish years old).
That's their business model.
As oppose to all those other companies that just do it for the lulz?
But don't remember this when it happens again in a few years time and they decide to not bother updating an "old" OS, regardless of how widely used it is.
Apple have supported hardware for about 7 years for a very long time now. All that's happened is the slowing progression of technology means more of those old machines are still viable to use; but that's okay, just bung Linux on them.
Microsoft provides clear and predictable support roadmaps for every OS even before it's released. Every major release gets 10-years of support, and on rare occasion they've extended that. Apple does this for their hardware, where they commit to support it for 5-years after release, but with their software they never bother to tell anyone when they stop supporting a particular version. You're left to divine it indirectly via methods like this, where some large security issue is patched in one version but not the other(s).
Suspect they might have to extend W10 if (as is likely) corporate take-up of W11 in a couple of years is still crap.
Did anyone else watch their online presentation on W11 on Monday? Aimed at IT pros and came across as a desperate plea to convince us that W11 is fantastic for business use. Was all hype and little content, and is unlikely to have swayed anyone in the normally-cynical IT profession!
I’m not sure where the 35-40% came from. Statcounter has the number of Catalina users at over 84% worldwide …
Looking on the bright side, I have contacts with several businesses and non-profits that have a habit of "upgrading" their macBook Pros when upgrading macOS proves to be troublesome. I am happy to take them off their hands. Most take to Linux very easily, and most go on to live happy lives at a non-profit that provides after-school activities.
That's how they did it with that NSO 0 day last fall.
They've even released patches for unsupported OS versions on a couple occasions for iOS for very serious flaws (I remember it at least once for a 0 day and they also did it for the GPS rollover) I don't have a Mac so I don't know if they do that with macOS also.
Apple blundering its software security isn't new. Of course, in the past they'd been the target of trolls and cyber propagandists who envied Apple software security. But that security began to fall away during the transition to Intel Macs in 2006. Out of that era was born a diverse group of hackers who shamed Apple into taking software security more seriously. Slowly, this resulted into embedded macOS embedded malware security and the iOS 'Walled Garden'. Today, there is a robust selection of third party companies devoted to analyzing Apple security as well as providers of macOS security tools, from firewalls to outgoing Internet connection control to malware detection, isolation and removal.
However, since circa 2016, Apple has gradually taken their eyes off the software ball and allowed for blunders that are obvious and annoying to users, while neglecting feedback from both users and developers calling for positive change. Apple's declining attention to software security is more of the same. Apparently, It's time for another era of Apple software security shaming.
Have At You!
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/have+at+you
I have an iMac Retina 2013, running 10.15.7 (Catalina), ini Canada .This morning a macOS security update was "available", but the installer is in a fail loop:
MacOS could not be installed on your computer. The file "firmlinks" couldn't be opened because there is no such file.. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again. On restart I get: https://support.apple.com/mac which gets a page titled "If your Mac doesn't start up all the way" which suggests resetting the NVRAM, which gets back to the installer, which fails with the same firmlinks couldn't be opened.
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