Apple Updates Macs For First Time Without Asking

For the first time in Apple’s history, the Mac has been updated automatically without requiring the permission of the owners. This move has come as Apple’s defense against the hackers who have been taking control and to counter that this automated security update is going to protect the Apple laptops as well as desktops from the newly discovered security vulnerability CVE-2014-9295, which affects OS X and other Linux and Unix distributions.

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Apple spokesperson Bill Evans spoke with Reuters and revealed how Monday’s update is rather ‘seamless’ and also said that Mac users won’t even have to restart their computers to make the update effective. This new security threat was revealed on Friday by the US Department of Homeland Security and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute and as it appears, Apple is not the only one who is vulnerable to the threat.

Researchers have already warned that some vulnerabilities in a computer’s network time protocol (NTP), which sync a computer’s clocks, can be responsible for allowing the hackers to take control of a computer remotely. In all previous updates, the users had to confirm the installation themselves but with the urgency requires, Apple has to design its own system which automatically installed the update on all systems.

Security analyst Ken Westin of Tripwire says “Apple’s proactive steps to automatically remediate this particular vulnerability shows the need to quickly patch remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. However, the use of Apple’s automatic deployment tool is not without risks, as even the simplest update can cause problems for some systems. In this case the update /4/have been so minor the risk of affecting other applications and processes was minimal.”