Security features on your MacBook Air
Your MacBook Air provides security features to protect what’s on your computer and prevent unauthorized software apps from loading during startup:
Secure storage: Your MacBook Air storage drive is encrypted with keys tied to its hardware 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 backup 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 MacBook Air doesn’t start 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 : 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 : In addition to the default storage drive encryption in MacBook Air, third-party app developers can use file-level encryption to better protect sensitive data, without impacting system performance.