EXPERT ADVICE
Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems
Contact us
Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com
macOS patches
Ever since Big Sur, system E software on our Macs has been almost impregnable from attack by malware. Its protection is so good that macOS updates, even small security patches, have been onerous. Although these have improved, as shown by Ventura 13.0.1, they’re still hefty downloads, at least 10 minutes of preparation, followed by black screens and a restart.
There’s now a better alternative, in Rapid Security Responses (RSR) – tiny by comparison and applied without restarting macOS. They’re simpler for Apple engineers to assemble and release, cutting the time between discovery of a vulnerability and patching it. They can also be removed, should they break something else.
From Ventura 13.1, RSRs should help defend our Macs until bug fixes are built into the next update.