Apple Releases macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Supplemental Update With Spectre Fix

Apple today released a macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 supplemental update, which comes a little more than a month after the initial release of macOS High Sierra 10.13.2.

macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 is a free update for all customers who have a compatible machine. The update can be downloaded using the Software Update function in the Mac App Store.

macOS High Sierra
macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 addresses the "Spectre" vulnerability that was publicized last week. Spectre, along with its sister vulnerability "Meltdown" are serious hardware-based exploits that take advantage of the speculative execution mechanism of a CPU, allowing hackers to gain access to sensitive information.

While Meltdown was addressed in the initial macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update, Apple said it would introduce a mitigation for Spectre in macOS and iOS early this week. There is no hardware fix for Spectre, so Apple is addressing the vulnerability using Safari-based software workarounds.

There's also a Safari 11.0.2 update available for macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 that is designed to mitigate the effects of the Spectre vulnerability. Customers running macOS Sierra and OS X El Capitan should download the new version of Safari to make sure their machines are protected.

Related Forum: macOS High Sierra

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Top Rated Comments

Sheza Avatar
102 months ago
Lol I'm not getting High Sierra. PoS full of bugs and performance issues.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolfactor Avatar
102 months ago
A safari-based workaround? Please...
Yah, and other browsers are responsible for their own fixes.

With browsers fixed, Spectre can’t be exploited via a web page.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rudy69 Avatar
102 months ago
Can't wait to see the benchmarks!
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacGekko Avatar
102 months ago
This video about 3:30 onwards has some good stuff (the stuff prior to 3:30 is about the root bug)



Another example of a graphic glitch:
Except when you read the comments it seems there are logical explanations for this performance and after the new file system is indexed most report their Mac computers running faster on High Sierra.

And a recent video update explained that when the Youtube creator installed the latest High Sierra update, 99 percent of his problems were fixed, what a waste of time.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pwm86 Avatar
102 months ago
Geekbench results for
iMac (27-inch Retina Late 2015)
Pre update:
Single-Core [B]Score [/B]5302 Multi-Core Score 17899
Geekbench 4.2.0 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)
Upload Date November 10 2017 07:52 AM

Post update is better!
Single-Core [B]Score [/B]5310 Multi-Core Score 18162
Geekbench 4.2.0 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)
Upload Date January 08 2018 06:47 PM
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
qawes Avatar
101 months ago
How dare they abandon people with machines more then 8 years old. :rolleyes:
I'm not aware of machines that can support Yosemite and cannot support El Capitan or Sierra.

There are a lot of people that cannot upgrade to High Sierra yet because some gear in the pro audio network isn't yet fully optimised to it, gear that is worth much, much more than a Mac that comes with High Sierra out of the box.

Official compatibility and real world stability are two different things in this world, that's why we stay behind one or two versions.

It is not our personal preference that Apple "has" to release a new version each year and we need to have the latest iMessage or whatever features, we would gladly prefer the strategy that was applied in the Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard days. We need security and a rock solid system, that's why we buy Apple products in the first place, right?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)