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That prevents an attacker from somehow inserting malicious code at boot and taking over the Mac.
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The T2 chip ensures that all the components involved in the Mac’s boot process, including things like firmware, the macOS kernel, and kernel extensions-can be cryptographically verified by Apple as trusted. There are four basic ways that the T2 chip increases security, two of which apply only to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. How Does a T2 Chip Increase Your Security? Others increase security by ensuring that they can’t be compromised by an attack, even if macOS itself has been infiltrated. Some of these features enhance performance by offloading processing (like enhancing FaceTime HD and listening for Siri) to a separate chip. They have their own memory and storage, and run an operating system called bridgeOS that’s based on watchOS.
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Management of the Touch Bar’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor and storage of sensitive biometric information.The T1 offered three primary capabilities: In late 2016, Apple introduced the T2’s predecessor, the T1, in the first Touch Bar–equipped MacBook Pros. On the whole, having a T2 chip in your Mac is a good thing, thanks to significantly increased security and other benefits, but there are some ramifications that you may not realize. If you own an iMac Pro, or a Mac mini, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro model introduced in 2018 or later, your Mac has one of Apple’s T2 security chips inside.
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