14 DAY TRIAL // Apple this weekend has received quite a few negative comments from its faithful customers after omitting to update an SSL certificate that handled the Software Update mechanism on Macintosh computers. The server-side flaw has since been fixed, though it is worth noting that customers seem to be taking these omissions very badly.
“An Error has occurred. The certificate for this server is invalid. You might be connecting to a server that is pretending to be ‘swscan.apple.com’ which could put your confidential information at risk,” reads the error.
If this happened to you, don’t worry about it. First of all, this is a non-issue. Stuff like this happens and it doesn’t make your computer less secure.
Second of all, if you really need to perform a software update, there’s always the Apple Support Downloads area or Softpedia, where you can manually grab your DMG/PKG files and install whatever update your Mac requires.
Swscan.apple.com is known to be one of Apple’s multiple servers that handle Software Updates for Macs. While on May 25 that server would have been deemed as insecure, starting today this is no longer the case. Apple has renewed its SSL certificates for this server, extending its validity.
According to reports, the expired SSL certificate may also have caused “NSURLErrorDomain error -1012” for some users.
Now for the fun part. So-called Apple faithfuls took to forums on Sunday to give birth to an outcry regarding this server problem, as if installing the latest software updates this Sunday was something everyone had jotted down as a to-do.
User Rafagon writes on the MacRumors forums, “Tim Cook should just say to Siri: ‘Siri, Remind me to fire the guy in charge of swscan.apple.com on Monday, May 26th’.”
“Isn't there at least one person, at Apple, whose job is to keep things like that up-to-date?” adds Yvan256.
“Forgets?? I can't see how something this big could just slip through the cracks :confused:” says Yakibomb.
User kdarling chimes in to say, “A hundred billion in the bank doesn't buy quality. Experienced employees give that. It used to be that corporations hired people to do one job, day in and day out, for years. Those people could take permanent responsibility and keep things humming Now they lay off senior people, outsource support, and/or move employees around like they were exchangeable parts in a machine. Penny wise and pound foolish.”
It is certainly obvious that, whenever Apple slips up, its loyal fans turn into vicious haters. Not surprisingly, many of them also pulled the Jobs-would’ve card:
“Steve would have never let the Mac App Store become Snappier without the Heartbleed update render leaking, Tim,” writes spyguy10709.
User man3ster agrees, adding, “It is unfortunate, but I have come to accept that Apple is prone to lots of mistakes. Under Jobs these mistakes were limited, but now the Cook steers the ship, the waters are more hazardous.”
No doubt people miss Steve jobs, but it would be interesting to test just how many of these people actually understand what this SSL bug was all about. What Tim Cook needs to do is just launch the iPhone 6 already to give people something really worth discussing.