It’s calledRapid Security Response (RSR), and it allows Apple to quickly patch security holes on-the-fly.
But it’s not all upside.
RSRs are relatively untested in the wild and not as secure as baking them into operating system updates.
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And they are also removable.
First, they may not update at all.
RSRs fix this by allowing hot-patching of the OS without a restart.
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These patches can also be smaller, making the downloads quicker.
The upshot is that you are protected as soon as possible without having to do anything.
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However, there are two downsides.
To see how this works, we must dig into what makes Apple’s operating systems so secure.
Now, Apple uses something called asigned system volume, or SSV.
These are grouped, and each new group gets its own hash, and so on.
That is the “seal.”
The whole setup makes itimpossible to modify the system.
If it is, your machine won’t boot.
“What Apple has engineered in RSRs is a mechanism for doing this without touching the SSV itself.
RSR patches exist outside this tree of cryptographic hashes and are therefore less secure.
But in practice, we still don’t know if they are actually less secure.
This is good news for us, the users, especially as we don’t have to do anything.
The new RSR feature is enabled by default, which is kind of the point.
It’s yet another reason to update to iOS 16 and macOS Ventura as soon as possible.
