If you’ve been using LockRattler to check for system and security updates, you might prefer to switch now to EFIcienC, which does most of what LockRattler can, only without its barrage of numbers, and largely automatically.

Open the app, and it automatically does the following:

• Checks which Mac model it’s running on, and the release of macOS.
• Looks up the latest EFI firmware version for that model, and compares it against that Mac’s.
• If the Mac is still running an older version of macOS – back to El Capitan – and hasn’t undergone updating to the new EFI version numbering system, it simply reports the version, as it can be very complex working out what is the ‘latest’ version in those circumstances.
• If the Mac is running the new numbering system, it reports whether the EFI firmware is out of date. It allows for those Macs running pre-release software such as Catalina, and shouldn’t have any problem with those more recent firmware versions.
• It checks the versions of security data, including XProtect, Gatekeeper, MRT, KEXT blocker, and TCC, and compares those against a list of what it should be running. If any differ, it warns you of them.
• It checks basic security systems, such as whether SIP has been turned off, and whether FileVault is active.
• It automatically checks to see if there are any system or security software updates available.
• If there are updates available, you can click one button to download and install them, so bringing your Mac up to date.

The only significant feature available in LockRattler which it doesn’t offer is to install individual updates. If you want to do that, then you’ll be better staying with LockRattler for the moment. Some of LockRattler’s more unusual features, such as checking whether log privacy is disabled, are also missing from EFIcienC, as I suspect they are little-used.

It comes not with one Help system, but two: a quick and simple Help page which explains its features, and a separate 14-page PDF Help book which provides a detailed reference to each item which EFIcienC assesses, including sample source code for some of its features.

I think that this is now almost feature-complete, and what it needs most is testing on a wide range of Mac systems, please. It should run fine on all Macs running 10.11 El Capitan to 10.15 Catalina beta 3, although the latter has a couple of odd anomalies at present in security data versions.

EFIcienC version 1.0b2 is now available from here: eficienc10b2
from Downloads above, through its auto-update feature, and its Product Page.

Please give it a good whirl and report any problems you encounter. This is also a good time to put in any feature requests.