Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons
license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary
on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the
entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/


Rapid Security Responses for iOS/iPadOS 16.5.1 (c) and macOS Ventura 13.4.1 (c)

   Adam Engst

   Let's try this again. Apple has re-released Rapid Security Response
   updates for [1]iOS 16.5.1 (c), iPadOS 16.5.1 (c), and [2]macOS Ventura
   13.4.1 (c) to fix a WebKit vulnerability that could allow malicious Web
   content to execute arbitrary code. The vulnerability is being actively
   exploited, and despite the website loading issues with Safari in the
   previous versions, I encourage you to install these updates as soon as
   feasible.

   In the event of problems, remember that you can uninstall Rapid
   Security Responses (but not regular updates) just as quickly as you
   install them (see '[3]What Are Rapid Security Responses and Why Are
   They Important?' 2 May 2023).
     * iPhone or iPad:Navigate to Settings > General > About > iOS
       Version, and then tap Remove Security Response. Tap Remove to
       confirm.
     * Mac:Go to System Settings > General > About, click the ' next to
       the macOS version, click Remove & Restart, and confirm the action.

   The new versions fix an issue that prevented a few websites from
   displaying properly in Safari by changing its user agent identifier to
   remove the parenthetical letter that seems to have confused sites like
   Facebook and Instagram. Apple also incremented Safari's build number.

   Caption: To see the User Agent options above, enable the Develop menu
   in Safari > Settings > Advanced, then look in the Develop > User Agent
   menu.

   While Apple's choice of letters for Rapid Security Response updates is
   questionable, Meta and other companies whose websites were affected
   also bear responsibility for not failing gracefully when encountering
   unexpected user agent identifiers.

   Let us know in the comments if you experience any other issues
   associated with the Rapid Security Response updates.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213823
   2. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213825
   3. https://tidbits.com/2023/05/02/what-are-rapid-security-responses-and-why-are-they-important/

   Hidden links:
   4. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2023/07/Safari-16.5.2-user-agents.png

.