Apple is a notoriously tight-lipped and insular organization, a tendency that has often put it at odds with the security research community. The company is typically secretive on the technical details of how its products and security features work. So the resource that security researchers say they have come to rely on most for bread crumbs is Apple's annual Platform Security Guide, the new edition of which launched today. It provides the most comprehensive and technical look at Apple's safeguards yet—including the first documentation of Apple's new M1 chips.
Apple first offered the guide a decade ago as a very short writeup at the dawn of the iPhone era. It would later evolve into an “iOS Security Guide" focused exclusively on mobile, before expanding to encompass macOS in 2019. It details security features like Touch ID and Face ID, Apple's secure enclave, and secure boot, so that software developers and security researchers can understand more about how those features work and interact with each other. Over the years, the company says it has tried to balance readability for a wide audience with usefulness to those with deeper technical knowledge. This year, it packs in more information than ever about features both new and old.
“I am constantly referring to that guide, and have been for years,” says Sarah Edwards, a longtime Apple security researcher. “I use it for all aspects of my research, my day job, my teaching gig, everything. About once a year or so I sit down with it on my iPad and read it page by page to see what I might have missed before or what hap ..
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