MacOS 26.4 increases security for ‘less experienced’ people

According to security experts, scammers have recently turned to social engineering, causing users to run malware on their computers. This helps them bypass anti-malware measures available on macOS or Windows. At that time, crooks can lure users into pasting commands into Terminal, downloading scripts or installing malicious code.

Typically, the attack will begin by creating trust, luring the user into installing information-stealing software (infostealer) on their computer, launching the application and deliberately bypassing the computer’s native defenses. The people who are most often scammed are the elderly, people with little experience using computers or less knowledgeable about technology in general.

With the macOS Tahoe 26.4 operating system, Apple attempts to prevent this situation by incorporating protection measures, including warnings whenever users paste a command line into Terminal, XProtect also automatically blocks malicious command files and issues warnings.

However, the downside of the new feature is that it can annoy people who are really knowledgeable about computers when too many warnings appear when working with command lines. Apple says this type of warning won’t appear for the first 24 hours after setting up a new Mac or for users who have installed developer tools like Xcode.

In addition, macOS 26.4 Tahoe also transfers the macOS FileVault recovery key to the user’s end-to-end encrypted Passwords app for the first time. Meaning, even Apple cannot leak or lose the user’s recovery key.

Previously, the company also made a series of security upgrades in the background, starting with macOS 26.3.1 and other device operating systems such as iOS 26.3.1, iPadOS 26.3.1. In addition to patches, updates provide additional security for small components in the Safari browser, Webkit, frameworks, and other system libraries.

With Windows computers, security methods often have to be combined between the chip supplier (Intel or AMD), Microsoft, and the computer manufacturing company. Mac computers have an advantage when Apple is proactive in aspects, such as security capabilities from the processor level when Apple integrates a separate hardware security coprocessor Secure Enclave into all Apple Silicon chips.

Secure Enclave can generate, store and protect encryption keys and user biometric data on the device, without uploading it to servers to avoid data leakage. This approach helps secure critical functions, such as secure boot, ensuring the operating system version is verified by Apple, encrypting user data on the device, protecting password storage, and integrating deeply into the code execution architecture.

Last year, Apple also introduced Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE), an advanced memory security mechanism, to thoroughly prevent attacks that exploit memory corruption bugs on iPhone 17 and iPhone Air. MIE uses Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) to tag each memory area, instantly detecting unauthorized access, helping fight spyware (like Pegasus) by blocking use-after-free errors and buffer overflows. This method works in “always on” mode, without affecting device performance or normal usage experience.