Apple brought back the beloved MacBook after the line merged with the MacBook Pro in 2009. At just 2 pounds and only 13.1 mm thick, the new MacBook overtook the MacBook Air as the thinnest and lightest Mac ever. It included a 12-in. Retina display, a redesigned butterfly mechanism keyboard and a Force Touch trackpad.

Apple introduced Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports in favor of the MagSafe adapter and standard USB-A ports for a slimmer form factor and increased power efficiency. Along with a fanless design, the new MacBook was available in a slew of different colors to match the iPhone 6s and iPad Pro lineup — gold, silver, space gray, and later, rose gold. Apple killed off the MacBook in July 2019, ending model overlap with the MacBook Air.

Vira Tkachenko, CTO at Ukraine software developer MacPaw, spoke remotely to Apple admins at Jamf’s JNUC event. A real-world  example of a woman in a leadership position in tech, she explained how her company planned for business continuity during the war in Ukraine.

It’s an excellent lesson in crisis management and planning for any business leader. Here are some of the insights shared during her session.

Make the complex simple

Planning is critical, Tkachenko explained. MacPaw read the same reports most of us were also seeing pre-war and began to plan before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Those planning meetings generated complex challenges, the solutions for which needed to be as simple to execute as possible.

MacPaw

“When the emergency happens, people become very emotional,” Tkachenko said. “People find it hard to handle complex tasks.”

With that in mind, the company attempted to create crisis responses that were easy to execute. 

The process of planning is also helpful to senior management, she said. In her own case, while even considering the crisis was emotionally challenging, meeting and discussing potential responses helped her build stronger resilience to lead that response once the war began.

The lesson is simple: If you plan a response to crisis that is overly-complex, you leave your company at a high risk of failure. During wartime, the consequences of any such failure could be severe for customers, staff, and the company itself.

Be realistic

Tkachenko seemed calm as she explained some of the things MacPaw’s crisis planners had to consider. The 500-person company is based in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its apps are installed on around a fifth of the world’s Macs. Most employees use Macs managed by Jamf and I spoke to some of them prior to the outbreak of the conflict. Tkachenko herself told me how impressed she has been by the performance of Apple Silicon Macs.

The teams knew the consequences of any failure to plan posed huge risks. In planning, they focused on the security and stability of services and the physical security of team members.

Some of the risks they anticipated included:

• Loss of internet and communications infrastructure.
• Occupation of offices by invaders, making access impossible and data insecure.
• Cyberattacks against the company and its services.
• An increase in the frequency of phishing attacks against employees.
• Attacks on corporate social media.
• Unauthorized access (using captured or lost devices, for example).
• Hardware supply chain disruptions, including interruptions in equipment supply and the provision of logistics, including power and transportation.
• Potential disruption due to sanctions and war zone company status.

Many of these risks were managed by moving infrastructure to the cloud, but the company also put a range of response plans in place. 

Expect the unexpected

What’s also interesting about how MacPaw prepared for the crisis is the extent to which the company tried to design a flexible crisis response. (It is also notable that the company already had Jamf as its MDM provider and most employees were used to remote working during the pandemic.)

For the first weeks of the war, the company had assigned an emergency team of experts tasked with keeping its products and services stable. Those teams had to be highly knowledgeable about the product/service they looked after, and had to locate to a safer zone, either in Ukraine or abroad. Any movement was planned pre-war and staff adopted use of a safe, encrypted alternative communication channel.

Other steps included stockpiling MacBooks to meet future needs, and the wholesale move of office infrastructure to the cloud – this included a move to adopt virtual Mac minis from Mac Stadium for use in building and compiling applications and adoption of cloud-based VPN Pritunl.

The company also experimented with satellite internet access, but found it expensive and hard to set up, and saw low connection speeds and latency issues. This only really improved once Starlink entered Ukraine once war began.

Despite all the planning, Tkachenko warned: “You can’t understand the emergency until it happens.” The company based its plans on an understanding of war based on historical conflicts, “But in reality it’s completely different,” she said.

“We had lots of cases we hadn’t anticipated, so you really can’t plan for everything.”

When the crisis hit

Tkachenko was awakened by air raid sirens across Kyiv at 5 a.m. on the day war began. The company initiated its emergency plan as team members attempted to evacuate. The need to protect its teams motivated MacPaw to build an app other companies might want to use called the Together app; it is available on GitHub.

The application was designed as a check-in system for employees and was designed to ask them where they were, whether they were safe and whether they were able to work. That last point is critical.

When a crisis strikes it’s unreasonable to expect your staff to work as they will be struggling with huge emotional challenges as they worry about their own safety and that of their friends and loved ones. At the same time, they will want to know the company they work for supports them.

The app also flags up instances in which employees with access to critical services or data are at risk, giving the company a chance to revoke such access, a key move to protect customers and services.

JNUC

The company admitted to facing a slew of unexpected challenges. For example, provisioning computers in a war zone may be a little easier with Jamf, but the logistical task of acquiring and distributing hardware becomes exponentially harder. That’s also true for staff based outside the nation, as challenges then emerge in making purchases remotely.

And at least one Mac went missing from an occupied zone.

You get used to war

In what I see as a tragic admission, Tkachenko told us that you become “accustomed” to war. The company remains in Kyiv and 70% of its employees remain in Ukraine. Some of its staff are serving in the armed forces in some capacity.

What lessons did the company learn? The biggest take away seems to be the need not to neglect planning. This isn’t just because a plan can be put in motion in crisis, but also because the process of creating these blueprints can make leadership more resilient once crisis happens.

A second is to speak with companies that have similar experiences.

A third is to be prepared to go off-script, because unexpected things are really going to happen.

“Changes are swift,” she said. “You must be able to make quick decisions and adapt to circumstances fast. Emergency teams need to be resilient and capable of handling huge pressure.”

MacPaw is still operating. Its products and services have remained secure despite the conflict. It has even managed to publish big software updates and build new products. Developers across Ukraine have remained connected to the wider world of the tech industry.

“It is possible to operate during war,” Tkachenko told the JNUC audience. “Hope to see you next year.”

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

Apple took a rare public slot at Jamf’s JNUC event to summarize its approach to meeting the needs of enterprise IT while enabling the consumer-simple user experiences every employee-choice scheme tells us people want.

Management, security, and identity – Apple’s approach to enterprise IT

Jeremy Butcher, head of Apple education and enterprise product marketing, spoke to the Jamf JNUC crowd, sharing improvements introduced at WWDC this year that he sees as a good representation of Apple’s work.

For years, Apple’s mission has been to deliver the best possible user experience with as little friction as possible. Ultimately, an employee should be able to open the box, login, automatically be enrolled in enterprise systems, and start using the device.

For the most part, Apple and MDM providers such as Jamf have already achieved this. The tools available to IT empower increasingly complex setups, including the automation of time-consuming tasks, such as monitoring and approving third party software updates.

Securing the user experience

But securing that process isn’t a one-strike game, it’s a succession of multiple evolutions taking place over time and reacting to — or, indeed, at times predicting — security events.

Industry professionals recognize that one of the consequences of the pandemic has been a recognition that traditional perimeter security protections simply aren’t robust enough to handle endpoints in complex deployments. In response, security intelligence is increasingly moving to the device, and given the vagaries of bandwidth, will likely become device- rather than cloud-dependent. We saw evidence of that move with Jamf’s ZecOps acquisition.

When it comes to its platforms, Apple is assembling building blocks to support both the toughest available security and best possible user experience.

Interestingly, Butcher conceded that in some places Apple has “room to improve,” though it is making “great progress” in others. He discussed four key enhancements made at WWDC as evidence of this attempt.

What Apple introduced at WWDC

At WWDC 2022, for example, Apple introduced:

Declarative Device Management: Now available across all Apple’s platforms, devices protected by this technology can monitor themselves, let the MDM system know if a change is applied at the endpoint, and respond more swiftly to changes deployed by IT. The idea is that admins have a much better picture of what is going on with a device and can apply any required policies quickly. It also hints at an approach to security that makes the Mac, iPhone, or iPad more self-aware. Apple calls this tech, “the future of MDM.”

Managed Device Attestation: Announced at WWDC 2022, Managed Device Attestation uses the Secure Enclave inside Apple products; when a device attempts to connect to MDM or other services it must also confirm it is a legitimate request from a legitimate device. The idea here is that the device itself becomes a proof point (or not). It also introduces the concept of continuous authentication, which will become a fundamental pillar of Apple’s future approach to management and security.

SSO for Mac: Apple at WWDC introduced platform SSO (Single Sign On) at the macOS login. This seemingly simple technology is perhaps also the most visible implementation of Apple’s attempt to make set up as simple as possible — open your Mac, login, and, because your password is backed up by an ID provider, you get the best of twin worlds: the additional protection the ID provider brings, alongside the full security architecture of the Mac, including data protection and biometric access, such as Touch ID.

The company also extended user enrollment single sign on at WWDC, enabling users to enroll in an MDM service — including on personal devices — by signing into both their Managed Apple ID and ID provider’s SSL app with a single login. Sign once, and it’s done. Apple also now supports OAuth 2.0 authentication.

Where this is going

A host of additional platform improvements introduced at WWDC also reflect the core tenets of Apple’s approach. Things like the new endpoint security and network extension APIs, federated authentication for Google Workspace, and Rapid Security Response all reflect the company’s focus on management, security, and identity.

At the same time, smart card support for iPhones and iPads and the network requirement when setting up a managed Mac show the company is actively identifying and securing commonly used attack vectors.

Beyond this, Apple’s new IT Training and certifications system is designed to plug the knowledge gaps created as the number of enterprises deploying Macs, iPads and iPhones grows. “We really want to make sure our products are the best, not only for users but also for IT,” Butcher told the audience of Apple admins.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

The Apple-in-the-enterprise story continues to unfold, this week with Jamf’s announced plans to acquire mobile threat detection and response company ZecOps.

Already consumer-simple, Jamf becomes government secure

Jamf will likely reveal more about the motivations behind the deal at its JNUC event for Apple admins, which begins tomorrow. The purchase is the latest move by the Apple-focused enterprise MDM provider to supplement device management with an increasingly effective set of tools to bolster device security.

From here, it seems inevitable the addition of ZecOps tech will give managed Apple devices much greater awareness around the state of endpoint security, while also widening Jamf’s own market.

ZecOps — declared one of the world’s most innovative companies in 2021— is used to protect world-leading enterprises, governments, and individuals, including Bloomberg and the BBC. It famously identified a nasty iOS vulnerability in 2020.

“ZecOps is the only available tool that provides the capability to extract, deliver, and analyze mobile device logs for signs of compromise or malicious activity,” said one customer, described only as “Department of State, a G7 government.”

Securing the enterprise

That’s very much in tune with the times, of course. The pandemic has proven the need to secure endpoints as criminals began targeting users to undermine corporate security systems. ZecOps should extend Jamf’s existing mobile security capabilities by adding advanced threat detection and incident response.

Ideally, devices should be able to act and react when a recognized exploit is made against them. This seems to be the direction of travel, given that ZecOps provides iOS users with the same level of threat defense Mac users already get using Jamf Protect.

It gives iOS devices some insight into detecting the kinds of sophisticated mobile threats that Apple’s Lockdown mode aims to prevent. Not only that, but a user can run both Lockdown mode and ZecOps software at the same time. (You have to install the profiles for ZecOps/Jamf Protect and/or any VPN service you use on the device before enabling Lockdown Mode.)

Mobile devices now account for 59% of global website traffic, and according to the 2022 Verizon Mobile Security Index, close to half (45%) of companies claim to have suffered some compromise in the last 12 months.

The addition of the software means Jamf can help accelerate mobile security investigations from weeks to minutes, leveraging known indicators of compromise at-scale and identifying sophisticated 0- or 1-click attacks on a deeper scale.

Threat detection for the rest of us

Jamf CEO Dean Hager Jamf explained why this matters: “We believe ZecOps has built a differentiated solution that meets a very important need for many organizations — the ability to thoroughly detect and investigate threats that target mobile users so they can confidently use these powerful devices for work,” he said.

“This capability further propels our goal of continuing to bridge the gap between what Apple provides and the enterprise requires.”

What Jamf gains

ZecOps is a sophisticated solution that enables advanced threat-hunting by capturing and analyzing logs from iOS and Android devices at the operating system layer. This critical data can accelerate incident response by enabling automatic or on-demand mobile cyber investigations.

The solution has been designed to handle the vast amount of data held in iOS logs to identify potential zero-day or single- or zero-click attacks. According to Jamf, ZecOps “does the heavy lifting for SOC teams, saving months of work per investigation.” To achieve this it automatically builds a suspicious event timeline and compromise to help show how and when devices are hit.

The idea that tech could have access to the logs on your device may make some users uncomfortable, but the companies stress that the log collection the system does is confined to low-level system and diagnostics data. It does not include personal data such as photos, videos, text messages and call logs.

“We founded ZecOps to catch hidden 0-click and 1-click attacks,” said Zuk Avraham, co-founder and CEO at ZecOps. “By combining with Jamf, we can offer our customers truly powerful mobile threat intelligence and threat hunting capabilities that will keep up with the evolving threat landscape without compromising the user experience.”

Enterprise news for Apple IT

This is just the latest in what now promises to be a run of interesting items involving Apple in the enterprise this fall, as we head toward the Apple Mac and iPad event/press release announcements next month. (At the moment, the speculation is there may be no Apple event.)

Jamf last week confirmed Jamf Pro support for virtual Macs in AWS. It opens the doors to JNUC 2022 in San Diego tomorrow.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

The latest American Customer Satisfaction Index data seems to show that Apple’s iconic Mac is losing a little luster in comparison to PCs from other makers, but I’m not entirely convinced.

Got to keep the customer satisfied

You see, the data shows Apple narrowly leads in the PC category (82% v. 79%). It also shows that some of Apple’s larger PC manufacturing competitors are gaining ground. Perhaps. But dig a little more deeply into the survey results and you’ll find the biggest innovation across the industry in the last couple of years (other than the move to Apple Silicon) involves improvements in customer services, specifically in call centers. 

The survey also confirms that tablets and laptops continue to replace desktop PCs. In 2021, 24% of the survey group used desktops compared to 62% on laptops and 14% on tablet devices; in 2022 desktop users accounted for 20% of survey respondents, laptop users 64% and tablet use reached 16%. 

It will be interesting to see whether the incoming M2 and then M3 Macs will help Apple add a point or two to its many-years-long consumer satisfaction leadership in the ACSI survey.

How did manufacturers improve consumer satisfaction? The single biggest improved criteria contributing to the result was the aforementioned call center satisfaction. Not processors, not software, but improved customer communication. As a criterion in the context of our times, that makes complete sense.

Reach out and touch point me

During the pandemic, shortfalls in tech support call handling became huge problems for some manufacturers. In the absence of any in-person help, PC makers had to force themselves to improve their remote communication services, and this led inexorably to better customer response at call centers. They knew they had no other way to make a direct connection with their consumers.

[Also read: Review: Apple’s M2 MacBook Air]

If I’m right, then it’s understandable Apple didn’t see the same level of improvement in customer satisfaction levels across this time.

That’s because it already offered outstanding tech support — both in-person and remote — before the pandemic. While the company did tweak its approach a little since the crisis began, those tweaks could not make best better than it was. But the ACSI survey suggests other PC makers did improve.

That’s a welcome relief for PC users stranded on platforms other than the Mac, I suppose, but it is also noticeable that satisfaction with Microsoft’s software continues to decline, according to the same survey. (Microsoft’s ASCI computer software satisfaction fell from 76 in 2021 to 73 this year.) It’s got to be better to build platforms that don’t generate too many help request calls.

We all by now recognize that Macs consume far less IT support time than other platforms, which translates into real financial benefits in terms of the TCO of these machines. Microsoft’s decline also suggests Apple’s unique selling point around macOS should make for continued gains in market share.

That’s also what the sundry market survey data that’s crossed my desk in the last few weeks suggests. Yes, PC sales have declined, but Apple’s share of those sales continues to grow, and in terms of raw numbers, the company appears to be maintaining while the overall industry shrinks. Given the choice, most employees will continue to choose a Mac, and the latest ACSI survey does nothing but suggest this choice will prevail.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.