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Want to protect your Mac against the Zombieload (MDS) bug? According to Apple, becoming fully protected is not as simple as installing a patch.
Must read: iOS 12.3: How to keep your iPhone safe from hackers and snoopers
Step one, however, is to install the latest updates, which are MacOS 10.14.5 for systems running Mojave, and Security Update 2019-003 High Sierra and Security Update 2019-003 Sierra for Macs running older operating systems.
However, if you believe that you are at heightened risk of attack, Apple recommends that you disable hyper-threading on the CPU. And this comes with a huge performance cost, with Apple claiming “as much as a 40 percent reduction in performance with tests that include multithreaded workloads and public benchmarks.”
That’s a huge performance hit, and one that is likely to not only be noticeable, but have a major impact on how the Mac runs.
If you believe that you are at elevated risk from the Zombieload attack and want to disable hyperthreading, here’s how to go about doing it:
1. Apply the patches listed above.
2. Switch on or reboot the Mac while pressing and holding Command (⌘)-R (or, for older Macs, one of the other macOS Recovery key combinations) on your keyboard.
3. From the Utilities menu in the menu bar, click Terminal.
4. Type the following at the Terminal prompt and press RETURN:
nvram boot-args=”cwae=2″
5. Type the following at the Terminal prompt and press RETURN:
nvram SMTDisable=%01
6. Restart the Mac
To roll back this change, carry out an NVRAM reset (note that if you have to carry out an NVRAM reset for any other reason then you will need to manually disable hyper-threading again).
See also:
Five ways Apple is responding to falling iPhone salesApple will soon be blitzing your iPhone with ads, because it’s profitableiOS 12.2 has a handy new timesaving feature for when your iPhone or iPad breaks downApple hardware updates have become boring, and the company knows itiOS 13 wishlistHardware is hard: The tech products that fooled or failed usHow to stop your iPhone from tracking and storing the locations of where you live, work, and visitShould you be scared of your laptop’s webcam?
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