Security features on your Mac mini
Your Mac mini provides the following security features to protect what’s on your computer and prevent unauthorized software apps from loading during startup:
Secure storage: Your Mac mini storage drive is encrypted with hardware keys to provide advanced levels of security. In the event of a catastrophic failure, data recovery may not be possible, so you need to back up your files to an external source. See the Apple Support article About encrypted storage on your new Mac. You can set up Time Machine or another back up plan to regularly back up your files on the computer. See Back up your files with Time Machine in the macOS User Guide and the Apple Support article Back up your Mac with Time Machine.
Secure boot and Startup Security Utility: Support for secure boot is turned on automatically. It’s designed to verify that the operating system software loaded on your computer at startup is authorized by Apple. See the Apple Support article About Secure Boot.
If your Mac mini doesn’t start up because it detects an untrusted component, it will start up from a secure recovery partition and automatically correct issues if possible. To learn more about the Startup Security Utility or to find out how to set other options, such as starting up from an external device, see the Apple Support article About Startup Security Utility.
System integrity (Apple M1 chip only): The Apple M1 chip is designed to verify that the version of macOS software loaded during startup is authorized by Apple, and continues behind the scenes to protect the authorizations established for macOS as it runs. This makes it harder for malware or malicious websites to exploit your Mac.
Data Protection (Apple M1 chip only): In addition to the default storage drive encryption in Mac mini with Apple M1 chip, third-party app developers can use file-level encryption to better protect sensitive data, without impacting system performance.
Note: In rare circumstances, such as a power failure during a macOS upgrade, your Mac mini may become unresponsive and the firmware on the T2 chip may need to be revived. See the Apple Support article Revive or restore Mac firmware in Apple Configurator 2.
Learn more. See the Apple Support article About the Apple T2 Security Chip.