Hackintosh Security

[BlowPop]

Hi All --

First post ever! I've been reading this forum for many months and planning to dive into a hackintosh for a while. Will probably pull the trigger later this year after I see how High Sierra / X299 / iMac Pro shake out. In the meantime, I'm on my trusty 2008 Mac Pro that I swear has begun cursing at me every time I turn it on.

This is probably a loaded topic, but I'm writing to get a better handle on security implications of moving to a hack. I'm a little on the paranoid side - I go back and forth whether that's a bug or feature in me. Here are a few thoughts and questions:

1. On SIP. My understanding is that turning if off (0x67) during install, post-install, updates, etc is very helpful, if not necessary, and that turning it on completely (0x00) is also doable with the potential complication of having to rebuild the kext cache at perhaps unforeseeable times. Is this reasonably accurate - are there other implications? I realize that there are many opinions on the effectiveness of SIP, but are there folks here that successfully use a hack with SIP at 0x00 during regular day-to-day use?

2. Firmware. Am sure most of you have seen the news these past few days and the potential risk of Macs not using the latest firmware. My understanding is that since a hack is BIOS based, not EFI, there is no issue here, per se. Clover could theoretically have rogue code in it - as well as BIOS updates, but that would be a separate issue. Not sure what could be done to address any potential risk here except checksumming downloads or compiling the source code before an update.

3. Unsigned kexts. From my reading, it seems impossible to get around only using signed kexts.

Are there other security thoughts or concerns that have been discussed? Appreciate the help as I consider taking the plunge!

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hi there.

I just replied for each point but as I did realised that people aren't replying because no one can guarantee security on a Hackintosh. Personally I do it as a hobby being a real Mac user for 16-years - a lot here have been Mac users longer! However we all know that things can go awry with any not-quite-really-a-Macintosh.

Good luck in your choice!

 

[BlowPop]

Hey there --

Completely understand, and many thanks for the thoughtful reply! Security is a tricky topic - means different thing to different people. I'll just have to go through the tradeoff in my mind in wanting to replace my 2008 Pro with another expandable Mac (2012 or what until next year) or a hack. Like most in life they have their pros and cons.

I've been following this community for months now, and it's a great one. Really appreciate all the help and knowledge sharing that happens here!

 

[IcePiq]

As we just learned last week, even genuine Apple can have massive security flaws.

To me, one of the bigger security risks here is the delay we require in applying software updates. Since an update can "break" our builds, we often need to delay the update, which can leave both public and secret holes unpatched.

 

[gioan85]

as about security,
as everybody known that macbook have a chip for manage password, keychain, ... it mean that everything your save on hard drive secured
so if i have a laptop with hackintosh then my data protected like real macbook ?
plz reply me soon
tks a lot