Jul 31, 2020 If you have hardware or software that isn't compatible with High Sierra, you might be able to install an earlier macOS, such as Sierra or El Capitan. MacOS High Sierra won't install on top of a later version of macOS, but you can erase your disk first or install on another disk. The name 'High Sierra' refers to the High Sierra region in California. Like with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion and El Capitan, the name also alludes to its status as a refinement of its predecessor, focused on performance improvements and technical updates rather than user features. Among the apps with notable changes are Photos and Safari.
About Apple security updates
For our customers' protection, Apple doesn't disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until an investigation has occurred and patches or releases are available. Recent releases are listed on the Apple security updates page.
For more information about security, see the Apple Product Security page. You can encrypt communications with Apple using the Apple Product Security PGP Key.
MacOS High Sierra (version 10.13) is the fourteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.' S desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. MacOS High Sierra was announced at the WWDC 2017 on June 5, 2017 and was released on September 25, 2017. The name 'High Sierra' refers to the High Sierra region in California. Be sure to delete any existing High Sierra installer, or put it on an external drive and then disconnect that disk from your computer. Then, download a new copy from the App Store. Your Mac doesn't support Catalina, so you'd have to try one of the patches to allow it to run on an unsupported computer. I'd say you're better off using High Sierra. Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 on production 1.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and prerelease macOS Big Sur. Systems tested with WPA2 Wi-Fi network connection while running on battery power, with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%.
Apple security documents reference vulnerabilities by CVE-ID when possible.
macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, Security Update 2018-004 Sierra, Security Update 2018-004 El Capitan
Released July 9, 2018
Accounts
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: A malicious application may be able to access local users AppleIDs Apple macos mojave download.
Description: A privacy issue in the handling of Open Directory records was addressed with improved indexing.
CVE-2018-4470: Jacob Greenfield of Commonwealth School
Entry added December 10, 2018
AMD
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: A malicious application may be able to determine kernel memory layout
Description: An information disclosure issue was addressed by removing the vulnerable code.
CVE-2018-4289: shrek_wzw of Qihoo 360 Nirvan Team
APFS
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2018-4268: Mac working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative
ATS
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: A malicious application may be able to gain root privileges
Apple High Sierra Tournament
Description: A type confusion issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2018-4285: Mohamed Ghannam (@_simo36)
Bluetooth
Available for: MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) and MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
Other Mac models were addressed with macOS High Sierra 10.13.5.
Impact: An attacker in a privileged network position may be able to intercept Bluetooth traffic
Description: An input validation issue existed in Bluetooth. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-5383: Lior Neumann and Eli Biham
Entry added July 23, 2018
CFNetwork
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: Cookies may unexpectedly persist in Safari
Description: A cookie management issue was addressed with improved checks.
CVE-2018-4293: an anonymous researcher
CoreCrypto
Available for: OS X El Capitan 10.11.6, macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Impact: A malicious application may be able to break out of its sandbox
Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-4269: Abraham Masri (@cheesecakeufo)
CUPS
Available for: OS X El Capitan 10.11.6, macOS Sierra 10.12.6, macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: An attacker in a privileged position may be able to perform a denial of service attack
Description: A null pointer dereference was addressed with improved validation.
CVE-2018-4276: Jakub Jirasek of Secunia Research at Flexera
Entry added September 25, 2018
DesktopServices
Available for: macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Impact: A local user may be able to view sensitive user information
Description: A permissions issue existed in which execute permission was incorrectly granted. This issue was addressed with improved permission validation.
CVE-2018-4178: Arjen Hendrikse
Intel Graphics Driver
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges
Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-4456: Tyler Bohan of Cisco Talos
Entry updated January 22, 2019
IOGraphics
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: A local user may be able to read kernel memory
Description: An out-of-bounds read issue existed that led to the disclosure of kernel memory. This was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-4283: @panicaII working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative
Kernel
Available for: OS X El Capitan 10.11.6, macOS Sierra 10.12.6, macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: Systems using Intel® Core-based microprocessors may potentially allow a local process to infer data utilizing Lazy FP state restore from another process through a speculative execution side channel
Description: Lazy FP state restore instead of eager save and restore of the state upon a context switch. Lazy restored states are potentially vulnerable to exploits where one process may infer register values of other processes through a speculative execution side channel that infers their value.
An information disclosure issue was addressed with FP/SIMD register state sanitization.
CVE-2018-3665: Julian Stecklina of Amazon Germany, Thomas Prescher of Cyberus Technology GmbH (cyberus-technology.de), Zdenek Sojka of SYSGO AG (sysgo.com), and Colin Percival
Kernel
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: Mounting a maliciously crafted NFS network share may lead to arbitrary code execution with system privileges
Description: Multiple memory corruption issues were addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2018-4259: Kevin Backhouse of Semmle and LGTM.com
CVE-2018-4286: Kevin Backhouse of Semmle and LGTM.com
CVE-2018-4287: Kevin Backhouse of Semmle and LGTM.com
CVE-2018-4288: Kevin Backhouse of Semmle and LGTM.com
CVE-2018-4291: Kevin Backhouse of Semmle and LGTM.com
Entry added October 30, 2018
libxpc
Available for: OS X El Capitan 10.11.6, macOS Sierra 10.12.6, macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: An application may be able to gain elevated privileges
Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2018-4280: Brandon Azad
libxpc
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: A malicious application may be able to read restricted memory
Description: An out-of-bounds read was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-4248: Brandon Azad
LinkPresentation
Download Apple Sierra
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to address bar spoofing
Description: A spoofing issue existed in the handling of URLs. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-4277: xisigr of Tencent's Xuanwu Lab (tencent.com)
Perl
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: Multiple buffer overflow issues existed in Perl
Description: Multiple issues in Perl were addressed with improved memory handling.
CVE-2018-6797: Brian Carpenter
CVE-2018-6913: GwanYeong Kim
Entry added October 30, 2018
Ruby
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: A remote attacker may be able to cause unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: Multiple issues in Ruby were addressed in this update.
CVE-2017-0898
CVE-2017-10784
CVE-2017-14033
CVE-2017-14064
CVE-2017-17405
CVE-2017-17742
CVE-2018-6914
CVE-2018-8777
CVE-2018-8778
CVE-2018-8779
CVE-2018-8780
Entry added October 30, 2018
WebKit
Available for: macOS High Sierra 10.13.5
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to address bar spoofing
Description: A spoofing issue existed in the handling of URLs. This issue was addressed with improved input validation.
CVE-2018-4274: Tomasz Bojarski
Entry added July 28, 2020
Additional recognition
App Store
We would like to acknowledge Jesse Endahl & Stevie Hryciw of Fleetsmith, and Max Bélanger of Dropbox for their assistance.
Entry added August 8, 2018
Help Viewer
We would like to acknowledge Wojciech Reguła (@_r3ggi) of SecuRing for their assistance with four mitigations.
Kernel
We would like to acknowledge juwei lin (@panicaII) of Trend Micro working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative for their assistance.
Security
Apple High Sierra Tour Dates
We would like to acknowledge Brad Dahlsten of Iowa State University for their assistance.
