back to article It's December 2018, and a rogue application can still tell your Apple Mac: I'm your El Capitan now

Apple has released a fresh set of security updates for its Mac and iOS software. The December patches also address flaws in tvOS, Safari, and the Windows versions of iTunes and iCloud. They should all be installed as soon as possible, via the usual Software Update mechanism. Baker's dozen fixes for Mac owners, plus nine in …

  1. David Shaw

    patching now

    it'll be nice to see if SecUpd 2018-003 is as 'fun' to install as SecUpd 2018-002 was on my mid-2012 MacPro (it took about a month, and the story is just too long to relate. . )

    at least now that MoJave is vers '02, that means I might try it on a minor mac somewhere - Pournelle's rule?

  2. Daniel Hall
    Devil

    hurr durr

    Macs are invincible. Macs never get viruses.

    Next!

    1. GX5000

      Re: hurr durr

      Said no experience tech ever.....

      1. James O'Shea
        Coat

        Re: hurr durr

        There actually aren't any viruses for macOS and never have been. Trojans, yes. Adware, yes. Spyware, yes. Even worms, yes. Viruses, no, other than MS Office macro viruses, and damn few of those both worked and were even close to being actual viruses. Doubters are invited to scour the list of CVEs and produce examples.

        Yes, I'm the one who points out that the armoured fighting vehicle that some twat on TV just called a 'tank' is a self-propelled artillery piece or, worse, an infantry fighting vehicle or even an armoured personnel carrier or an armoured scout vehicle. I also have been known to point out that aircraft such as AC-130s are NOT fighters. This kind of thing makes me very popular at parties.

        Yes, that's my coat, the one with the box for a 1:32 scale model of a Douglas SBD beside it. And the box, too, thanks.

        1. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

          Re: This kind of thing makes me very popular at parties.

          Yes, Trisha McMillan told me you actually did go as Livingstone, rather than Darwin. Despite the Beagle being the obvious giveaway.

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: hurr durr

          Viruses are rare for modern OSes, partly because executable images on filesystems often aren't writable by the victim, but more because it's just not an interesting or particularly useful exploit mechanism anymore. There are much better things for an attacker to do, notably downloading more complex payloads and either planting them elsewhere in the filesystem or leaving them memory-resident.

          Saying there are no viruses for MacOS is a bit like saying few people these days break their wrists turning the starting cranks for their cars, or get kicked by their horses when harnessing a team to their carriages.

          Also, if we're including the classic MacOS (and why wouldn't we be?), some sources disagree with your claim.

        3. Daniel Hall
          Pint

          Re: hurr durr

          James,

          To the non techy people out there, you know who I mean, anything that alters the working state of a computer against the will of the user will get called a virus.

          I was simply implying the world is full of Mac loving sheeple who love a Mac for no other reason than they "heard it doesnt get viruses"

          Dont worry, its Friday tomorrow.

  3. Craigie

    arbitrary remote code execution via a malicious web page

    Nice.

    1. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
      Devil

      Re: arbitrary remote code execution via a malicious web page

      Or, as it's known in Windows-land, Active X...

  4. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    The problem is...

    The problem is... I don't want to use a Mac, and I use an iPhone because it's a better rock than the hard place of having a handset with an O/S from Google on it. So iTunes on Windows (whilst utterly shit) is the only viable alternative for getting all of my music on and off of the handset.

    Unless anyone knows any different???

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Re: The problem is...

      There are plenty of alternative bits of software that claim to be able to do it - doing a search for "iphone data to pc without itunes" brings up lots of results though I have only personally checked out SyncIOS, which seemed to work fine - www.syncios.com

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