MacBook Pro with Touch Bar might not have anti-malware feature enabled

By Ed Oswald November 17, 2016

Apple MacBook Pro OLED with Touch Bar — Malarie Gokey/Digital Trends

If you’re the proud owner of a new MacBook Pro with Touch Pad, you might want to take a minute to make sure that your computer is sufficiently protected from malware. According to a Thursday report on Macrumors, some new MacBook Pros are shipping without a feature enabled that protects the laptops from unauthorized root access.

The feature is called “System Integrity Protection” (SIP), and works by restricting the permissions of the root account to prevent unauthorized access to files and folders. Developer Jonathan Wright was the first to notice the issue early Thursday, and asked about it on Twitter.

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Responses to his tweet, as well as investigation by Macrumors and other sites, seem to indicate that not all new MacBook Pros are affected. Some reported that their Touch Pad-equipped laptops did have SIP enabled, and it does seem like the new non-Touch Pad MacBook Pros are not affected at all.

Regardless, it’s still a good idea to check. Checking to see whether or not you’re affected is fairly simple. Open up Terminal, and type “csrutil status” at the prompt and hit enter. the status of SIP will be returned, and if it’s enabled there’s nothing else you need to do.

However, if SIP is not enabled and you’d like to turn it on, the process is a bit more involved. You’ll need to restart your Mac in recovery mode, and open up a Terminal window. This time at the prompt type “csrutil enable” and hit enter. You’ll need to restart the laptop in order for the changes to take effect.

Apple is aware of the issue, however so far the firm has not provided any details as to why SIP was disabled. It also has provided no timeline for the release of a fix. In the meantime, we suggest you take a quick look to make sure you’re not affected, to ensure your computer is not at risk.

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For fifteen years, Ed has written about the latest and greatest in gadgets and technology trends. At Digital Trends, he's…

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