Popular Security Products from Microsoft, Crowdstrike, and ESET Break Down after the Latest MacOS 15 Update

• Just a few days after Apple released the macOS 15 update, a bunch of users started complaining about their security products malfunctioning.
• Initially, it was thought that the problem lies within the products. However, it was later revealed that the problem was on Apple's side.
• Affected security firms include ESET, Microsoft, SentinelOne and CrowdStrike.

On 16th September 2024 (Monday), Apple released the latest macOS 15 update and just four days after that (from Thursday onwards) reports of the update breaking security products started flooding in.

Cybersecurity firms such as CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and SentinelOne posted on social media as well as a Mac-focused Slack channel talking about the problem.

Basically, people who updated to macOS had trouble with network connectivity. It only worked after the unsupported security tools were switched off.

What Do the Security Companies Have to Say About This?

Crowdstrike has asked its users not to update to the latest version of macOS because of these compatibility issues.

But for Crowdstrike, this wasn't a sudden ambush, It was well aware that it wouldn't be able to support macOS 15 from day 1. In fact, a CrowdStrike engineer had posted in the Slack channel on the day of the release that despite their intentions and usual practice, they wouldn't be supporting it from day 1.

A similar alert was sent out to customers as well, stating There's quite a lot going on with the changes in the network stack."

The reason was revealed to be this same compatibility issue. A report was also made to Apple but they knew there won't be any fast patch to this bug. It'll probably require fixing CrowdStrike's code with a sensor release.

The Duke University has also published a troubleshooting guide for the CrowdStrike issue.

• SentinelOne issued a similar warning on the same Slack channel, advising its users not to update to the latest Sequoia version until they have a supported SentinelOne Agent.
• However, the issue for SentinelOne was quite short-lived. Just one day after the update was made generally available, they announced support for the platform.
• The same thing happened with ESET. It advised users against updating to macOS without updating ESET products. ESET Endpoint Security version 8.1.6.0 and later and ESET Cyber Security version 7.5.74.0 and later are the only versions supported on the platform.

Microsoft's issue is restricted to the Stealth Mode which apparently prevents a machine from responding to connection requests from closed TCP or UDP networks. This issue can be resolved by disabling the Stealth Mode from the firewall settings.

Apart from the security products from these well-known tech giants, other small tools such as VPNs and RDP connections are also suffering after this update.

What Does Apple Have to Say About This?

Apple has been suspiciously quiet throughout this whole debacle. It has not responded to any questions - neither the ones posed by us nor the ones (talking about the problem) posed by the affected companies.

According to Patrick Wardle, a renowned researcher specializing in the security of Apple products, Apple was well aware of this issue because even before macOS 15 was released, multiple people and multiple departments within the company had reported this issue. So Apple 100% knew about it and still went ahead with the release.

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