![]() The other is a Dell or a Thinkpad or something with then-current Windows 10.Īs of today, that Macbook needs to go. You buy two computers for two different employees. You're a corporation with a typical IT policy that says, basically, "Any PC with an OS that isn't getting patches must be upgraded to a supported version or retired." A sensible and standard policy. I'm truly struggling to see the actual problem here. But no OS developer is going to commit to fully supporting every version of its product for a full decade, because of course not. So it is with Windows, too - as just noted above, Microsoft doesn't support its minor version releases for longer than three years, and you need to update to the latest version your machine can support to take advantage of new updates. Older Mac OS versions still get critical security patches, but aren't regularly updated the way more modern versions are. It seems like Apple is being held to a standard here that other OEMs aren't really held to. ![]() Either support these old OSes properly, or don't pretend to do so. Promoted Commentsįrankly, this is a shit policy for a trillion dollar corporation. But if you believe you're being specifically targeted by attackers, you have another reason to make sure your software (and hardware) are fully updated and upgraded. ![]() We've asked Apple to be more upfront about its security communication, and this is a step forward in that regard. And Apple's documentation doesn't change anything about how it updates older software it merely confirms something that had already been observed. Most people running an up-to-date Big Sur or Monterey installation with an up-to-date Safari browser should be safe from most high-priority threats, especially if you also keep the other apps on your Mac updated. That said, this probably shouldn't dramatically change your calculus for when to upgrade or stop using an older Mac. Software like the OpenCore Legacy Patcher can be used to get the newest OS versions running on older hardware, but it's not always a simple process, and it has its own limitations and caveats. This means that every year, there's a new batch of devices that are still getting some security updates but not all of them. This is relevant for Mac users because Apple drops support for older Mac and iDevice models in most upgrades, something that has accelerated somewhat for older Intel Macs in recent years (most Macs still receive six or seven years of upgrades, plus another two years of updates). Intego Chief Security Analyst Joshua Long has tracked the CVEs patched by different macOS and iOS updates for years and generally found that bugs patched in the newest OS versions can go months before being patched in older (but still ostensibly "supported") versions, when they're patched at all. This confirms something that independent security researchers have been aware of for a while but that Apple hasn't publicly articulated before. Advertisementįurther Reading Some Macs are getting fewer updates than they used to. Apple currently provides security updates to macOS 11 Big Sur and macOS 12 Monterey alongside the newly released macOS Ventura, and in the past, it has released security updates for older iOS versions for devices that can't install the latest upgrades. In other words, while Apple will provide security-related updates for older versions of its operating systems, only the most recent upgrades will receive updates for every security problem Apple knows about. "Because of dependency on architecture and system changes to any current version of macOS (for example, macOS 13)," the document reads, "not all known security issues are addressed in previous versions (for example, macOS 12)." Updating from iOS 16.0 to 16.1 or macOS 12.5 to 12.6 or 12.6.1 is an update. So updating from iOS 15 to iOS 16 or macOS 12 to macOS 13 is an upgrade. Throughout the document, Apple uses "upgrade" to refer to major OS releases that can add big new features and user interface changes and "update" to refer to smaller but more frequently released patches that mostly fix bugs and address security problems (though these can occasionally enable minor feature additions or improvements as well). Further Reading PSA: Apple isn’t actually patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS
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