Apple provides step-by-step advice on how to protect your Mac from a ZombieLoad attack. The processor will lose up to 40% of its performance

Following the newly discovered vulnerability in Intel processors, Apple provided an additional procedure to protect Macs from an attack called ZombieLoad. But the tax for disabling the attack is up to 40% loss of performance.

Apple very quickly released the macOS 10.14.5 update, which itself includes a basic patch for the newly discovered vulnerability. Therefore, you should not hesitate to install it, if you are not hindered by, for example, the compatibility of software or accessories.

However, the repair itself is only at a basic level and does not provide comprehensive protection. Apple has therefore released an official procedure on its website to completely prevent the attack. Unfortunately, the negative effect is a loss of up to 40% of the total processing power. It is also necessary to add that the procedure is not intended for ordinary users.

While macOS 10.14.5 update includes the most critical patches protecting the operating system as well as a fix for JavaScript processing in Safari, a hacker can still exploit other avenues. Complete protection therefore requires disabling Hyper-Threading and some others.

Additional protection against ZombieLoad is not necessary for everyone

An ordinary user or even a professional will probably not needlessly want to sacrifice so much performance and the possibility of multiple fiber calculations. On the other hand, Apple itself states that, for example, government employees or users working with sensitive data should consider activating protection.

For readers, it is also necessary to emphasize that the probability of an accidental attack on your Mac is rather small. Thus, the above-mentioned users working with sensitive data, where hacker attacks can really be targeted, should be cautious.

Of course, Apple recommends installing only verified software from the Mac App Store and avoiding any other sources.

Those who want to undergo protection activation must go through the following steps:

1. Restart your Mac and hold the key command and a key R. Your Mac will boot into recovery mode.
2. Open it Terminal via the top menu.
3. Type the command into the Terminal nvram boot-args=”cwae=2” and press Enter.
4. Then type the command next nvram SMTDisable=%01 and confirm again Enter.
5. Restart your Mac.

All documentation is available on this Apple website. At the moment, the vulnerability only affects Intel architecture processors and not Apple's own chips in iPhones and/or iPads.