Apple device security has become a terribly relevant aspect for several years now. The oldest veteran will remember the days when companies and users boasted that their computers were completely secure, to the point that they didn’t even need a security solution to protect them. Today, fortunately, that misconception has practically disappeared, although it is still possible to hear someone repeating it like a mantra without knowing that this attitude exposes them to all sorts of threats.

Apple, it must be admitted, is not resting on its laurels. Exactly opposite, attaches great importance to safety it even ran into public security agencies demanding backdoors in their devices to enable their investigations. Cupertino’s response to these requests has always been negative, and it does not appear that any change is contemplated in the future. We have also recently seen a strong response from Apple after the Pegasus scandal, which first condemned those responsible and later created a specific mode for the iPhone that prevents espionage by said means.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Apple devices and software are risk-free.. For example, in June of last year we told you about PACMAN, a vulnerability that affects M1 chips, and this is just one example of many security issues. In these cases where a “hole” exists, the key is to be able to provide a response as quickly as possible to users who may be affected. However, the update system of the iPhone and iPad is not the best designed to offer a quick response.

However, that has since changed, and immediately Apple announced Rapid Security Responses, a new model for security updates which the company defines on its support page as follows:

«Rapid Security Response is a new type of software release for iPhone, iPad and Mac. They offer important security improvements between software updates, such as improvements to the Safari web browser, builds of the WebKit framework, or other important system libraries. They can also be used to more quickly resolve some security issues, such as issues that may have been exploited or reported.»

And what change do rapid security responses mean to the current model? These critical security updates will be applied to the device automatically, meaning the user will not need to update the operating system to receive the security fixes listed. This feature will be enabled by default, although users who wish to do so can disable it in the operating system settings.

It requires rapid security responses iOS 16.4.1, iPadOS 16.4.1 or macOS Ventura 13.3.1. And for users who choose to disable Rapid Security Responses, they will receive these security patches when they download future updates to operating systems that already include them.