Do you use a university owned Mac? If so, please read our guidance on effective Mac Management.

As part of ongoing security remediation across the university, colleagues from Digital and Technology Services (DTS) are responsible for ensuring university owned devices are kept secure by pushing out regular updates and patches.

Whilst this is easy to do with Window devices, there are Apple Mac devices available to staff and students across each of our campuses as well, so it is important that all Mac users know how to keep devices safe and secure.

Keeping university devices safe and up to date through effective Mac management

Mac management is simply the process of monitoring and managing Mac devices to maintain a high level of security and to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks.

Mac devices, just like other university owned devices need to be updated regularly, ensuring they are running on the latest Operating System (OS).

Updating your Mac’s OS ensures that you have the latest functionality and removes known security vulnerabilities to help shield our networks and critical data. Keeping your device up to date is especially important if you access any sensitive or research data where contract requirements often mandate this.

DTS cannot currently, automatically push updates out and so it’s important that updates are checked for regularly and installed manually by the Mac owner. If prompted to install an update when using a Mac, please do so.

Mac devices, just like Windows, come to a point where they are just not able to upgrade to the latest OS level. When this happens, the Mac has reached its end of life and needs to be replaced and disposed of appropriately.

It should not be used in an unsupported state as it will no longer receive important security updates and therefore poses a risk to the university.

If you’re using or are aware of a university owned Mac device that can no longer be upgraded to the latest OS, contact DTS who will advise on what actions should be taken.

If you have any questions regarding university owned Mac devices, please get in touch with the Mac Support Team via ui-macadmins@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk.