The T2 chip was designed for FileVault, and it comes at no cost to that and in Apple silicon Macs. Here’s how it works, and why everyone should enable it.
SEP
Originally the ‘security enclave’, and subject of a series of patents, it was introduced in the iPhone 5s in 2013, then the T2 in 2017, and blossomed in M-series Macs from 2020.
The panic log tells you it was a SEP Panic. What’s the SEP, and how is this different from any other panic? And what should you do about it?
Is there a Secure Exclave Processor in M4 chips, a sister to the Secure Enclaves in Macs with T1, T2 or Apple silicon chips? What are they, and what do they do?
T1 and T2 chips in Intel Macs, integral in M-series chips, used in Sequoia’s virtual machines at last, and an essential feature in Private Cloud Compute.
Secure Boot and its 5 stages, the SSV, support for external bootable disks, the SEP, Recovery, and lightweight virtualisation.
First added to Macs in the T1 chip, the Secure Enclave makes it far harder for an attacker to gain access to secrets like the FileVault encryption key.
The Eclectic Light Company 