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Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

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Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#81

Post by nobodyshere »

DennisP wrote: post #50
duxup wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish we had a physical switch that cut power to the camera and mic... I worked on some old networking equipment a while back that had a physical fail over switch. If you opened the cover you could watch the connection switch, fun stuff. Also very effective.

Purism laptops have hardware kill switches for camera/mic and wifi/bluetooth. https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/

Unfortunately it has much weaker specs. No thunderbolt, only dual core CPU, slow Wi-Fi. They didn't even care enough to tell us the screen resolution, which is at least to me an important thing to know before buying.

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#82

Post by als0 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #9
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

> line-speed encrypted storage What does this mean? > The Mac unique ID (UID) and a device group ID (GID) are AES 256-bit keys fused (UID) or compiled (GID) into the Secure Enclave during manufacturing. No software or firmware can read the keys directly Does anyone know the details underlying this?

I don't have any insight into the details, but I'd guess that under the hood (and not-so-under the hood) it looks and behaves a lot like a TPM

Indeed. Since Apple controls the full hardware and software stack, it's not surprising that they are making their own security chip without any of the ugly downsides of TPM (TPM has more complex interfaces and logic that try to cover a broader set of use cases than what Apple support). As another upside, they are also not reliant on any supplier code for the chip.

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#83

Post by Johnny555 »

unwind wrote: post #80
Johnny555 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how long it will be until someone manages to figure out how to use image processing to read the noise seen by the camera sensor while the lid is closed and turn it into audio. Kind of like this: http://news.mit.edu/2014/algorithm-recovers-speech-from-vibr...

That's certainly an interesting thought, but do note (from the linked article): In some of their experiments, the researchers used a high-speed camera that captured 2,000 to 6,000 frames per second. . I haven't checked, but I would be surprised if Apple uses cameras that are capable of that as normal user-facing webcams in their laptops ... Recovering meaningful audio signal (which usually has lots of data above 1 kH…

From the next paragraph:

In other experiments, however, they used an ordinary digital camera. Because of a quirk in the design of most cameras’ sensors, the researchers were able to infer information about high-frequency vibrations even from video recorded at a standard 60 frames per second.

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#84

Post by solatic »

I'm of two minds about how the T2 safeguards access to storage. On the one hand, safeguards like these are a great step forward for endpoint security to guard against device theft. On the other hand, if you break your machine in some way that your storage is still intact - too bad, you're locked out.

What Apple is really saying with this kind of design is that you need to treat your machine as if it were disposable. You won't worry about losing your data if your laptop only has a cached copy. If your machine breaks, ditch it, get another one, redownload your data from the cloud.

But most customers don't actually use their Macs this way. They don't see their highly-priced luxury machines as disposable. They don't pay for cloud storage; if they do, then they don't keep all their data backed up to their cloud storage accounts, and they expect that their original data will still be available. They don't have 3-2-1 backup strategies and they don't plan for being locked out of their cloud backups.

So this doesn't feel to me like Apple focusing on security. It feels like the security-focused extension of Apple's general strategy: rising prices and declining repairability as the basic formula for strategic revenue growth from their Western upper-class customer base. And that's something to be resisted.

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#85

Post by arprocter »

Crontab wrote: post #60
hyperrail wrote: post #8

One interesting point in the discussion of UEFI secure boot: it appears there is no way to boot OSes other than Mac OS and Windows without disabling secure boot entirely. > By default, Mac computers supporting secure boot only trust content signed by Apple. However, in order to improve the security of Boot Camp installations, support for secure booting Windows is also provided. The UEFI firmware includes a copy of th…

"it appears there is no way to boot OSes other than Mac OS and Windows without disabling secure boot entirely." I am personally okay with that, so long as it can be turned off.

Can confirm that the T2 MPB on my desk right now can't see a clonezilla USB stick (booting with option key) even with "No Security" and "Allow booting from external media" checked

The stick boots fine on a non-T2 Mac Mini

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#86

Post by repolfx »

kristofferR wrote: post #61
voctor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that "The camera is not disconnected in hardware because its field of view is completely obstructed with the lid closed."

And since the webcam in Macs electrically can't get power without also powering the green notification LED, it's impossible for malicious actors to activate the webcam silently while the lid is open.

Is that still true?

I read some time ago that the LED used to be hardware controlled, but switched to being software controlled at some point.

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#87

Post by [deleted] »

pilif wrote: post #74
shittyadmin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just waiting for the Rossmann video when someone manages to spill some Coke on their T2 chip... Shit like this is why I will never buy another Apple product. With my encrypted drives I can pull them out, put them in another machine and decrypt them no issues.

And the same goes for whoever steals/subpoenas your machine. Shit like this is why I only buy Apple products. The data I care about I have (encrypted) backups of. Not having backups and hoping that a specific hardware failure will not affect my ability to restore is equivalent to, well, just not having backups to begin with.

[deleted]

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#88

Post by shittyadmin »

pilif wrote: post #74
shittyadmin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just waiting for the Rossmann video when someone manages to spill some Coke on their T2 chip... Shit like this is why I will never buy another Apple product. With my encrypted drives I can pull them out, put them in another machine and decrypt them no issues.

And the same goes for whoever steals/subpoenas your machine. Shit like this is why I only buy Apple products. The data I care about I have (encrypted) backups of. Not having backups and hoping that a specific hardware failure will not affect my ability to restore is equivalent to, well, just not having backups to begin with.

> And the same goes for whoever steals/subpoenas your machine.

Yes, because clearly all other encryption technologies are so vulnerable to theives and cops. There's only a pile of evidence of TrueCrypt and Bitlocker being quite effective in the field against both criminals and law enforcement agents.

And that's not to mention SSD-based technologies which still allow for portability while mitigating some of the more theoretical attacks.

> The data I care about I have (encrypted) backups of. Not having backups and hoping that a specific hardware failure will not affect my ability to restore is equivalent to, well, just not having backups to begin with.

This is a good strategy, I too employ it with the majority of my important data, but it's just not realistic for normal people. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some scratch note or IDA database file that I'd be missing if I lost my desktop drive today...

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#89

Post by shittyadmin »

bunnycorn wrote: post #73
shittyadmin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just waiting for the Rossmann video when someone manages to spill some Coke on their T2 chip... Shit like this is why I will never buy another Apple product. With my encrypted drives I can pull them out, put them in another machine and decrypt them no issues.

Then they are not encrypted.

Encrypted using passwords = not encrypted. Yeah, okay, tell that to the FBI who couldn't break TrueCrypt only a few years ago.

Re: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview [pdf]

#90

Post by ReC757 »

arprocter wrote: post #85
Crontab wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it appears there is no way to boot OSes other than Mac OS and Windows without disabling secure boot entirely." I am personally okay with that, so long as it can be turned off.

Can confirm that the T2 MPB on my desk right now can't see a clonezilla USB stick (booting with option key) even with "No Security" and "Allow booting from external media" checked The stick boots fine on a non-T2 Mac Mini

Is it UEFI bootable? I believe thats a requirement with newer Macs.
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