Security

Secure Enclave overview

The Secure Enclave is a hardware-based key manager that’s isolated from the main processor to provide an extra layer of security. The Secure Enclave is a hardware feature of certain versions of iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and HomePod—namely:

iPhone 5s (or later)
iPad Air (or later)
Mac computers that contain the Apple T2 Security Chip
Apple TV 4th generation (or later)
Apple Watch Series 1 (or later)
HomePod

The key data is encrypted in the Secure Enclave system on chip (SoC), which includes a random number generator.

The Secure Enclave also maintains the integrity of its cryptographic operations even if the device kernel has been compromised. Communication between the Secure Enclave and the application processor is tightly controlled by isolating it to an interrupt-driven mailbox and shared memory data buffers.

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Apple Platform Security

Secure Enclave overview