San Francisco, Nov 16 Apple has aimed to address and prevent a glitch in its macOS Big Sur release that resulted in server-side issues and failed third-party app launches for users owing to a bug.
The company last week officially released macOS Big Sur as a free software update which is the biggest Mac update in years and brings new design enhancements to Safari, Messages, Maps, and privacy, and is engineered for Apples powerful in-house M1 chip.
Afterwards, third-party apps failed to launch as Mac couldn't check the developer certificate of the app.
macOS includes a technology called Gatekeeper, that's designed to ensure that only trusted software runs on your Mac.
"Gatekeeper performs online checks to verify if an app contains known malware and whether the developer's signing certificate is revoked," Apple said in a security update.
"We have never combined data from these checks with information about Apple users or their devices. We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices".
When someone installs Mac apps, plug-ins and installer packages from outside the App Store, macOS checks the Developer ID signature to verify that the software is from an identified developer and that it has not been altered.
"Before opening downloaded software for the first time, macOS requests your approval to make sure you aren't misled into running software you didn't expect," Apple said.
The notarization process checks if the app contains known malware using an encrypted connection that is resilient to server failures.
"To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs," the company informed.
In addition, over the next year, Apple said it will introduce several changes to its security checks, like a new encrypted protocol for Developer ID certificate revocation checks, strong protections against server failure and a new preference for users to opt out of these security protections.
Big Sur introduces a beautiful redesign and is packed with new enhancements for key apps including Safari, Messages, and Maps, as well as new privacy features.
Big Sur delivers a spacious new design that makes navigation easier, while putting more controls at users' fingertips.
( With inputs from IANS )
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