hoakley Macs, Technology, Updates

Apple has just released updates to XProtect and XProtect Remediator

Apple has just released updates to XProtect Remediator security software (Catalina or later), bringing it to version 123, and to XProtect (for all macOS from El Capitan or so) bringing it to version 2179.

Apple doesn’t release information about what security issues these updates might add or change.

However, XProtect’s Yara definitions add one new detection rule for MACOS.DOLITTLE.HJK, and adjust the detection rule for MACOS.e79dc35. Many thanks to Phil Stokes @philofishal of SentinelOne Labs who has identified MACOS.DOLITTLE.HJK as detecting a Genieo variant, also known as MaxOfferDeal.

No new scanning modules are added to XProtect Remediator.

Bastion rules for the behavioural version of XProtect (Ventura and Sonoma only) include an adjustment to Rule 7 for creating and writing to files in ~/Library/Application Support, and the addition of Rule 8 for creation of and writing to ~/Library/Application Support/.DS_Store, and Rule 9 for creating and writing files in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari/AppExtensions/.

You can check whether these updates have been installed by opening System Information via About This Mac, and selecting the Installations item under Software.

A full listing of security data file versions is given by SilentKnight, LockRattler and SystHist for El Capitan to Sonoma available from their product page. If your Mac has not yet installed these updates, you can force them using SilentKnight, LockRattler, or at the command line.

If you want to install these as named updates in SilentKnight, their labels are XProtectPayloads_10_15-123 and XProtectPlistConfigData_10_15-2179.

I have updated the reference pages here which are accessed directly from LockRattler 4.2 and later using its Check blog button.

I maintain lists of the current versions of security data files for Sonoma on this page, Ventura on this page, Monterey on this page, Big Sur on this page, Catalina on this page, Mojave on this page, High Sierra on this page, Sierra on this page, and El Capitan on this page.