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). 27, 75 days after the appearance of Catalina's 10.15.6.Further Reading PSA: Apple isn’t actually patching all the security holes in older versions of macOS If Apple sticks to that pattern, it will post Big Sur on the Mac App Store on Monday, Sept. The past three macOS upgrades were all released on a Monday: Catalina on Oct. The three-year average gap between one edition's final non-security update and its successor's release: 74.3 days. And the year before that, Sierra's final non-security update, 10.12.6, shipped July 19, or 69 days before High Sierra debuted in final form. In 2018, High Sierra's last non-security update, 10.13.6, appeared on July 9, 77 days before Mohave's launch. Last year, for instance, Mohave's final non-security update, 10.14.6, made the scene on July 22, or 77 days before Catalina's release. More telling, Apple has a habit of releasing the last non-security update for the then-current edition about 10 weeks before the successor goes public. When a new edition launches – this year's upcoming Big Sur – the oldest (n-2) falls off the support list. Apple supports the latest edition of macOS (call it "n") and the two before that ("n-1" and "n-2). Likewise, the Security Update 2020-004, also issued Wednesday, was almost certainly the last for macOS 10.13 High Sierra, the operating system Apple launched in September 2017. For the last three cycles – Mojave, High Sierra and Sierra – Apple released six non-security updates to each edition the four before that topped out at five updates apiece. MacOS 10.15.6 will likely be the final non-security update to Catalina, the still-current Mac operating system. Most of the flaws, absent a fix, might have let criminals run attack code on a compromised Mac. The update also patches 19 security vulnerabilities in 16 of Catalina's components, ranging from Audio and Kernel to Mail and Wi-Fi.
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