Bombich Software Blog

It's Fall here on the top of the globe, which means that temps are getting cooler, pumpkin seems to be in everything, and apples are in season. And of course, Apple is about to drop another new upgrade to macOS: Ventura. We've been testing the new OS over the summer, and I'm pleased to report that CCC is ready to protect your data before and after you apply this upgrade – we added official Ventura support to CCC 6.1.3, which we posted back in September.

Every year we make a handful of changes to CCC to support changes that Apple makes in the new OS. We have a mixed bag this year, and I wanted to point out just a couple things that work a little differently. Overall, the changes are pretty bland, which means this article will not be very exciting. So to spice things up, I added a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Muffins at the bottom.

System Preferences → System Settings

The name change seems innocuous, but the changes that Apple made to this application are really significant. Initially I was really flustered with the new layout. I...

CCC 5.1.27 and CCC 6 can make bootable copies of the system on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs (11.3+) right now, and we'll continue to support that functionality as long as macOS supports it.

But as Apple's platform continues to evolve, we have to design our recovery strategies around the current hardware capabilities. A bootable external device may not be a part of that strategy. CCC can do so much more than just make copies of the system, and now is the right time to revisit your backup strategy and make it even better with some of the new features in CCC 6.

For decades, Mac users have taken for granted the Mac's "External Boot" feature. Prior to Mac OS X, people could simply drag and drop the System folder from one volume to another; presto, external boot volume. When Apple made it more complicated with Mac OS X, we pioneered the "bootable backup" solution (nearly 20 years ago!), and this has been a feature we've reliably supported on every new Mac and every new OS since then.

But Apple has never been afraid of shaking things up to blaze new trails. Big Sur and the new...

We've had so many new features in the oven for a while, and now we're finally ready to share it with the world! CCC 6 offers unprecedented accountability for your backups and insight into what's changing on your Mac, plus a brand new file copier that's faster, smarter, and designed to adapt to Apple's fast pace of OS and filesystem innovation.

Take a look at what's new in CCC 6:

• Faster backups with our next-generation file copier
• Quick Update: Update your backups up to 20x faster
• Redesigned interface with Dark Mode, real time task performance info and estimated time remaining
• Snapshot navigator: Easy way to explore older versions of files
• CCC Dashboard: The new menubar app, now with snapshot disk usage
• Run backups "When files are modified on the source"
• Task Preview: See what will happen before you back up
• Backup Audit: Review what was copied and why
• Compare: Visual comparison of the source and destination
• Advanced file verification options
• Pause a backup, and several other features our users have asked for

The core CCC backup features you know and love are now better than ever!

On the eve of World Backup Day and with stories like the Atlanta ransomware attack still in the news, now is a great time to revisit your backup strategy. It's also a great time for us to announce some great new features that we're getting ready to deliver as a free update to CCC 5 users – features that will help you improve your defenses against ransomware and malware.

Versioned backups with APFS Snapshots

CCC 5.1 offers support for point-in-time restores by leveraging the snapshot feature of Apple's new APFS filesystem. CCC's SafetyNet feature offered similar functionality to this in the past, but snapshots take it to a new level, allowing you to do things like restore a previous version of the OS and older versions of your Photos library.

CCC is also the first comprehensive snapshot management utility for macOS. Browsing the contents of any snapshot is just a click away, and should you want to delete a specific snapshot (whether created by CCC or Time Machine), just select it and press the Delete key. How much space are those snapshots consuming? CCC can tell you that. No other utility offers this much insight into your APFS volumes'...

Recently Palo Alto Networks reported a "ransomware" threat to Mac users named "KeRanger". After reading their analysis I found myself deeply concerned. Ransomware threats are nothing new, but I realized that this is probably the closest I've felt to the seedy world of cyber terrorism. Up until now all of that seemed to be aimed at governments, defense departments, big corporations... Windows users! Here we are, though, it's at our doorstep, and our neighbors are already victims. I received an email from a CCC customer yesterday that started with:

I happen to be one of the people who got hit with the ransomware hacks.

Yikes! I was not expecting a good outcome here. Thankfully, the rest of the email was:

Luckily I had a CCC of my drive and booted off that, deleted the ransomware files and was fine.

While this threat appears to be mostly contained at the moment, I think everybody should take some time to examine their defenses against this sort of attack. Having a backup is an obvious first step, but there are some additional steps that you can take to protect your backup too.

Protect yourself from ransomware

This particular...