Apple Chips Now Feature Hardware-Level Memory Protection, A Major Leap in cybersecurity
CUPERTINO, CA – September 23, 2025 – Apple has implemented a groundbreaking new security feature within its chips designed to proactively defend against a common class of software vulnerabilities: memory safety issues. The technology, built upon the arm Memory Tagging Extension (MTE), essentially “password protects” every memory allocation, preventing unauthorized access and significantly raising the bar for potential attackers.
For years, developers using languages like C and C++ have faced challenges in avoiding memory safety vulnerabilities – errors where software improperly accesses or manipulates computer memory. These vulnerabilities are a frequent source of security breaches. Rather than relying solely on developers to avoid these pitfalls or detect them after the fact,Apple’s Security Engineering and Architecture team sought a more basic solution.
The core of Apple’s approach leverages MTE, a specification initially released by arm in 2019. MTE works by assigning a unique “secret” to each memory allocation.Any attempt to access that memory must include the correct secret, or the access is denied, causing the request to crash and logging the event for developer review.
apple collaborated with Arm to refine MTE for continuous, real-time protection. This resulted in the release of the Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension in 2022. “Apple’s engineers wondered whether MTE could run all the time rather than just being used as a debugging tool,” the article details.
A key challenge was maintaining performance while constantly generating and verifying these memory “secrets.” Apple claims to have successfully overcome this hurdle, architecting the protection deeply within its chips without meaningful performance degradation.
This move represents a significant shift in cybersecurity strategy, moving beyond reactive patching and vulnerability detection towards proactive, hardware-enforced memory integrity. The technology aims to mitigate a widespread problem stemming from the vast amount of existing code built on memory-unsafe programming languages.
Tags: Apple, cybersecurity, hardware, integrity, vulnerabilities.
Posted on September 23, 2025 at 7:07 AM • 6 Comments
