No need to quote the article about the things that users should be doing to protect themselves. In our home that has been the modus operandi for a long time…
I had little doubt you’d be on top of that, but the quote was intended more for those who aren’t, or hadn’t followed that link.
Perhaps my question should have been clearer. Not having a full understanding of the technical possibilities of the Intel chip data being in the wrong hands, my concern was about the potential for placing malware on the computers of people who do comply with the security protocols built into the MacOS - by bypassing those user efforts. Your response doesn’t expand my knowledge in that regard.
Without going into too great detail, or suggesting that I am an expert on the topic, the malware possibility premise here somewhat resembles the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities referred to in your Verge link, albeit from a different perspective. At that time, software ‘fixes’ were supposed to ameliorate the consequences of the hardware flaws until the transition to newer CPU designs naturally phased out the problem. I recall little fuss beyond that initial incident, other than the fact that things were pretty much out of users’ hands.
Regardless of the actual status of the work to deal with these flaws, this workaround approach is pretty much the only one available. Keeping quiet about the current status suggests things may not be entirely hunky dory, but what are you going to do with constraints all over the place? Your hardware is already out there, and is being used. I suspect the current situation will likely be addressed in similar ways, and that’s why it’s good to know there are some who keep a eye on that.
If you are correct, and there is an inevitability to Apple being hacked, I would feel a hell of a lot more comfortable with Apple being “on the case†to solve a security issue involving Apple chips than I would with
Intel addressing a security issue with Intel chips. The problem with little or limited information is that it’s impossible to make a definitive call, beyond perhaps showing that there still are exploitable flaws after fixes are announced. I don’t expect that to be different should Apple find itself in a similar bind. How
exactly it would respond is equally hard to predict, but Apple is known to be rather reticent to discuss issues far less problematic than the Intel ones (which it—as a user—undoubtedly had a part in addressing). If that floats your boat…
