macosmacos catalinanotificationssystem-preferences
I just upgraded to macOS 10.15 Catalina, and now I have this (1) badge on my System Preferences dock icon.
Here's my System Preferences:
I don't see any badges on the preference pane icons, but I did click through to each of them and didn't see any obvious action items. I was signed in with my Apple ID previously, and signing out did not make the badge go away.
This is very easy.
Go to System Preferences > Mission Control, then deselect the option "Displays have separate Spaces"
It turns out that Apple really wants you to take security seriously (you should!) and is promoting the use of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for iCloud accounts.
If you click on the iCloud icon, you will be presented with the message which was the notification source:
If you hit the “Continue” button you will be presented with the opportunity of enabling 2FA, learning more (please do this at least), or leaving it off for now.
Best Answer
I just upgraded to Catalina and ran into this problem. To fix it, it went into System Preferences > AppleID (Top right hand corner) > the left panel, click on Overview > There, it should say you need to link your AppleID once you've done that, it will ask you to enable two factor authentication. Once I did that, the red badge for system preferences went away.
Hope this helps