Mac malware is more common than Apple generally likes to admit. But a new protection in the company’s specialized T2 security chip hints at a sophisticated type of attack that the company may be trying to preempt.
In a white paper released after Apple’s iPad Pro and MacBook Air-focused hardware event event Tuesday, the company detailed how the chip, first introduced in last year’s iMac Pro, will now include a mechanism to cut off a laptop’s microphone at a hardware level whenever the lid is closed. This means that no matter what malware might be running on a device—and no matter how much device access and control that malware has—there won’t be a way for it to use software tricks to keep your mic listening after you close your computer.
“All Mac portables with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that ensures that the microphone is disabled whenever the lid is closed,” the company wrote in the new documentation. “This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed.”
Read more at Wired.com