Apple SoC security

Apple-designed silicon forms a common architecture across all Apple products and powers iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. For over a decade, Apple’s world-class silicon design team has been building and refining Apple systems on a chip (SoCs). The result is a scalable architecture designed for all devices that leads the industry in security capabilities. This common foundation for security features is only possible from a company that designs its own silicon to work with its software.

Apple silicon has been designed and fabricated to specifically enable the system security features detailed below.

Feature	A10	A11, S3	A12–A14 S4–S9	A15–A18	M1	M2–M4
Kernel Integrity Protection
Fast Permission Restrictions
System Coprocessor Integrity Protection
Pointer Authentication Codes
Page Protection Layer				See Note 1 below.	See Note 2 below.
Secure Page Table Monitor						See Note 2 below.

Note 1: Secure Page Table Monitor (SPTM) is supported in the A15 or later and M2 or later SOCs and replaces Page Protection Layer on supported platforms.

Note 2: Page Protection Layer (PPL) and Secure Page Table Monitor (SPTM) enforce the execution of signed and trusted code on all platforms with the exception of macOS (because macOS is designed to run any code). All of the other security properties, including the protection of page tables, are present across all supported platforms.

Apple-designed silicon also specifically enables the Data Protection capabilities detailed below.

Feature	A10, A11 S3	A12–A18 S4–S9 M1–M4
Sealed Key Protection (SKP)
recoveryOS - All Data Protection Classes protected
Alternate boots of DFU, Diagnostics, and Update - Class A, B, and C data protected

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Apple SoC security