Apple addressed the hot topic of the current world, security; very abundantly at WWDC 2018. While there are a hell lot of malicious hackers trying to access some or the other part of your personal data, Apple seems to have addressed this issue. In the Platforms State of the Union event for developers, Apple mentioned a number of new security beef-up that are coming to the macOS 10.14 and iOS 12.
After the popularity of 2-way authentication in the modern security world, Apple has chosen that way to secure the proceedings in iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Mojave. Using a strong password for every site or service, and enable two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible highly secures the account and also prevents someone from using your login with the password alone.
Keeping this issue in mind, users can be provided with unique passwords that are strong and difficult to crack which will be synchronized across devices using the iCloud Keychain. These passwords will be offered in sign-up forms within apps as well as through web forms in Safari.
Safari in iOS and macOS for years has suggested passwords when you’re asked to create a login at a site but Apple plans to improve this feature. On several occasions in the past, Apple has fallen short by providing passwords that don’t meet the patterns stated on sites that require certain, often unnecessarily complicated password formulas, such as at least two digits and a special character. This version seems to have sidelined all those issues of the past. So, this is surely an upgrade on the previous versions.
Just like seen in the latest version of Android since Marshmallow, users have control over near every aspect of their phone’s features being used. Similarly, Apple is also extending privacy protections to the camera, microphone, and other sensitive user data that includes mail database, message history, Safari data, Time Machine backups, iTunes device backups, locations and routines, and system cookies. According to Apple, the user will be notified whenever their camera or microphone is being used by any of the application. In macOS Mojave, apps will need express user consent for all API and direct access to these resources. Users will also be able to make changes to permissions in the Security & Privacy section of their Mac’s System Preferences.
Apple seems to have a fix for applications that are distributed outside of the Mac App Store and signed with a Developer ID. To address this issue, Apple is introducing a secondary “Notarize” review process that’s designed to detect malicious content faster and provide Apple all the resources in case the app needs to be flagged unsafe. Apple also mentioned that this will only revoke a specific bad release rather than a developer’s entire certificate.
As mentioned by us earlier, Safari has an enhanced Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature that aims to reduce the number of data points advertisers can acquire. Basically, this means that the advertising agencies will no longer be able to create your digital fingerprint and identify you as a unique distinguish user.
Safari will also present advertisers with a set of simplified system information, one that makes the user’s Mac look indistinguishable from other Safari users, increasing the difficulty of tracking users.
MacOS Mojave will be the last version of macOS to support 32-bit apps, another move that Apple is making to keep its Mac operating system secure and up to date.
