New Mac Bug – Is Your Computer at Risk?

new mac bug

If you own an older Mac, a newly-discovered bug may make your machine vulnerable. But when we say “older Macs,” we’re not talking old G4s and Snow Leopard era Macs. This bug has been shown to affect mid-2014 and older models, including MacBook Pro Retina, MacBook Pro 8.2 and MacBook Air.

New Mac Bug Details:

The new bug, discovered over the weekend by OS X security researcher Pedro Vilaca, relates to the “UEFI,” a part of your Mac’s firmware. It turns out UEFI, which is normally protected, can become unprotected and writable after a Mac comes out of sleep mode. This could give hackers the ability to plant malware on your machine which can be difficult to remove.

So how do you protect yourself from this bug? Until Apple releases a patch, the best thing you can do is shut your computer down instead of putting it to sleep.

If you own a mid-to-late 2014 Mac or newer, you appear to be safe from the bug, according to Vilaca.

iPhoto & Aperture Users: Read now

Apple recently announced it will cease development of Aperture and iPhoto. Users can migrate their current library into the new Photos editing app included with Mac OS X 10.10. We recommend running a backup before starting any data migration. Read this article on tips for backing up your library before the move.

Library Contents: What To Look For

Your actual library is called “iPhoto Library.photolibrary” or “Aperture Library.photolibrary.” Mac OS X handles these libraries as packages, hiding the folders within. However, CrashPlan sees iPhoto and Aperture libraries as folders.  Below is an example of how your library appears the CrashPlan app’s file selection.  This folder contains information that OS X hides:

iphoto-article

Why all these files?

iPhoto and Aperture rely on metadata and non-destructive techniques to manage changes made to your photos. This is important to remember when restoring iPhoto and Aperture data: if you only restore photos, and not your photo library, then your events and edits won’t be restored.

Shoe Box Analogy

Think of having all of your photos in one big shoe box. This is your library. When you go through this shoe box, you may separate each event with rubber bands or slips of paper. When you crop a photo, instead of using scissors, you decide to cover up the parts you don’t want to see with sticky notes.

In iPhoto, your events and edits are stored in your library as metadata alongside your photos. None of your photos are actually cropped or re-colored unless you explicitly tell iPhoto to do this. iPhoto keeps notes on what you want to have your photos look like and shows those settings “on the fly” when you look at them.