Migrate to OS X Yosemite 10.10.3

[cheddar-caveman]

Found this article this morning from Swedish hacker Emil Kvarnhammar in http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/10/hacker_digs_up_os_x_root_backdoor suggesting that everybody should upgrade to the latest OS X. Personally I haven't a clue what he's talking about, "backdoors" and the like, but is this genuine, should we all now be running Yosemite or is it Apple trying to get us to do so?
I have resisted the upgrade so far as I have heard of many problems with it (have these been fixed now?).
Is it best (safe) to upgrade to Yosemite 10.10.3 now please? I'm running a 15" Mac Book Pro Retina running 10.9.5 and works fine on which I do all my work so cannot afford problems!

 

[chscag]

Don't believe everything you hear. Lots of folks running Yosemite without any problems whatsoever. Just make sure you have a full Time Machine and cloned backup before you upgrade. Then if by some chance you do have a problem you can always go back to Mavericks.

 

[vansmith]

Just as a counterpoint (I'm sure chscag will agree...maybe not though? haha) - there's nothing wrong with sticking with what works (to a degree - if you were five iterations behind, I'd have a different answer). Mavericks is more than capable and if you want to stick with it for now, you'll likely miss very little unless there's something in Yosemite you absolutely want.

 

[toMACsh]

Just as a counterpoint (I'm sure chscag will agree...maybe not though? haha) - there's nothing wrong with sticking with what works (to a degree - if you were five iterations behind, I'd have a different answer).

Phew! ~I'm safe.

I still use Snow Leopard, which I think is only 4 behind.

 

[chas_m]

Snow Leopard should be considered unsafe -- it has MANY flaws that can be exploited (that were discovered well after support was dropped for it.

In a recent discussion about the referenced problem (a flaw in System Preferences that could allow miscreants with *physical access to your machine* root privileges), I and the other participants did our homework on this (including a confirmation call to Apple) and this is what we found:

1. It is fixed for all versions of Yosemite. So if you're on Yosemite, this is a total non-issue.

2. If you're not on Yosemite, your odds of having a problem with this flaw are vanishingly tiny, but there is a risk. It's a very serious flaw in that it could allow someone to take over the machine, but your odds of having this issue are on par with your odds of winning the lottery while simultaneously being hit by lightning.

3. Apple has opted to make fixing it for previous versions (and I'm quoting a senior engineer here) "a low priority" because of the amount of work it would require and because of the very low odds.

4. This position of Apple's on the matter might well change if someone developed a way to leverage this flaw more easily.

Bottom line: if you are on an UNSUPPORTED os x version, (ie 10.6 or earlier) you need to upgrade for a huge variety of security-related reasons, not just this.

If you are on a maintenance-only OS X version (10.7), you should upgrade for security reasons and general "lots of features work better and Save As is back" reasons.

If you are on a SUPPORTED OS X version (10.8 and higher), you can run Yosemite so you should upgrade, but the house isn't on fire or anything.

 

[toMACsh]

miscreants with *physical access to your machine*

Not an issue for a home desktop computer...

Seems like the rest of your post addresses issues that depend upon that basic assumption. If there is a "huge variety" of other security issues, then it couldn't be too difficult to point out a few. That could be beneficial to me and any other holdouts.