Addigy: 25% of managed macOS devices in ‘stuck state’ due to software compliance

Addigy, a popular Apple device management solution, has just released its findings where 25% of managed macOS devices are in a “stuck state” for all mobile device management commands after failing to deploy Apple’s Rapid Security Responses updates. To address the issue, Addigy is releasing a new MDM Watch Dog utility to fix the issue.

The stuck state condition we discovered within our customers’ environments affects one out of every four devices, so the impact to macOS environments in any enterprise is likely the same,” said Addigy CEO Jason Dettbarn. “We are committed to keeping our customers’ macOS devices secure. The MDM Watchdog utility is a critical tool to ensure all of our customers’ devices are automatically updated with the latest RSR and every future update.

In a world of constant security threats, it’s critical that organizations that use Macs are able to push out new policies, new configurations, and new security updates with the push of a button. Addigy notes that by its estimates, 25% of Macs out in the wild are affected by this bug that has been lingering for the past few months in the latest version of macOS Ventura. This bug does not seem to affect iOS or iPadsOS but is specific to macOS.

Addigy’s customers now have access to a Watchdog utility that monitors devices in a state where they stop responding to MDM commands. Again, this doesn’t just access devices not processing software updates remotely but all MDM commands. For teams in remote environments, it’s a very challenging situation to address otherwise. Addigy’s new Watchdog tool provides a solution to the problem until Apple addresses it in future versions of macOS.

Our customers are in the healthcare industry, which is highly regulated, and as a result, all of our machines must have the latest versions of any security software installed and running to prevent data leaks, intrusions, or other disruptive events,” said Dan Lowry, Sr. IT Administrator, Forian. “Our Apple-based end-points are critical to the trust our clients put in us and for our employees to be as productive as possible. We’ve been testing the Addigy MDM Watchdog utility to ensure none of our machines miss applying an update. Only tools like Addigy can fix MDM when it’s in a broken state like this, as it’s entirely unresponsive.

A community-based solution

Addigy’s new Watchdog tool is coming to other MDM providers as well in the coming weeks as well. Addigy is prepping a solution that any customer could deploy to their fleet regardless of which MDM provider they’re using. The ability for Addigy to solve this problem for the Mac community at large is one of the benefits of Apple standardizing the macOS MDM framework. To learn more about the new MDM Watchdog tool, visit Addigy’s new landing page.