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Apple Releases macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Supplemental Update With Spectre Fix

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Apple today released a macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 supplemental update, which comes a little more than a month after the initial release of macOS High Sierra 10.13.2.

macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 is a free update for all customers who have a compatible machine. The update can be downloaded using the Software Update function in the Mac App Store.

macOS-High-Sierra-800x500.jpg

macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 addresses the "Spectre" vulnerability that was publicized last week. Spectre, along with its sister vulnerability "Meltdown" are serious hardware-based exploits that take advantage of the speculative execution mechanism of a CPU, allowing hackers to gain access to sensitive information.

While Meltdown was addressed in the initial macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update, Apple said it would introduce a mitigation for Spectre in macOS and iOS early this week. There is no hardware fix for Spectre, so Apple is addressing the vulnerability using Safari-based software workarounds.

There's also a Safari 11.0.2 update available for macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 that is designed to mitigate the effects of the Spectre vulnerability. Customers running macOS Sierra and OS X El Capitan should download the new version of Safari to make sure their machines are protected.

Article Link: Apple Releases macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Supplemental Update With Spectre Fix
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/08/macos-high-sierra-10-13-2-spectre-fix/
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I had to install Safari 11.0.2 twice on OS X 10.12.6. The Update button was still active after the first update.
 
Rudy69 said:
Can't wait to see the benchmarks!
Click to expand...

Benchmarks are going to be completely different depending on what you do.

For most there will be almost no impact. For those that run lots of virtual machines, they will see the biggest impact.
 
Here's a benchmark on PC. I know this is an apple to orange comparison (pun fully intended), but might give you a bit of an idea as to the impact to performance. Gaming and geekbench performance pre and post updates (which included Windows only as well as Windows+firmware updates) are more or less within margin of error. The one big hit was to 512K write performance on the SSD. In everyday usage I probably won't notice any difference.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1556-meltdown-and-spectre-cpu-performance-windows/
 
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Sweet...upgraded to High Sierra just recently due to it already being partially patched.
 
Interestingly ... this update appears to have updated the OS X kernel itself. Note the output of SW_VERS on the command line pre and post update:

Pre:
ProductName: Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.13.2
BuildVersion: 17C88
Post:
ProductName: Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.13.2
BuildVersion: 17C205

Since this update was just to Safari / WebKit, you would think that the kernel wouldn't need an update, which makes me wonder what else they snuck in.
 
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