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Does Apple silicon like the M1 chip have a spy chip (management engine) of sorts? [Answer: yes] (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org to c/infosec@infosec.pub

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/41050620

Spy chips are:

Intel CPUs after ~2008

AMD CPUs after ~2013

Arm CPUs (not sure when they started the trustzone stuff but likely around 2013 since AMD uses trustzone)

I believe IBM Power9 chips are spy chip free, but not sure about the successors.

Anyway, the question is about Apple chips. Web searches are lousy these days. I find nothing to confirm or deny the presence of management engines in Apple (Motorola?) CPUs.

Intuitively, I don’t think it would make business sense for Apple to do that because a majority of their customers are non-corporate individuals (unlike intel). OTOH, if that were sound logic then it would seem to contradict Arm chips which are also largely bought by non-corporate individuals.

Anyway, if anyone knows plz mention it here, ideally with a source.

Thanks!

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[–] S4m_S3p1l@infosec.pub 1 points 1 week ago

Would disk encryption not function similarly on Linux machines, aside from the extra features the T chips support?