Considering it's somehow skipping the password authorization prompt for this... "special" upgrade in particular, even though it requires password authorization to update Safari or the normal security releases (including today's macOS 12.7.3 security and Safari updates) it seems less likely to me that this is a bug. My guess is it's meant to make a bunch of users get on the newest version, even though they didn't want to, and make them second-guess themselves about whether they made a mistake and brought it upon themselves.
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Considering it's somehow skipping the password authorization prompt for this... "special" upgrade in particular, even though it requires password authorization to update Safari or the normal security releases (including today's macOS 12.7.3 security and Safari updates) it seems less likely to me that this is a bug. My guess is it's meant to make a bunch of users get on the newest version, even though they didn't want to, and make them second-guess themselves about whether they made a mistake and brought it upon themselves.