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<blockquote data-quote="MacDefender" data-source="post: 949487" data-attributes="member: 83059">I would say not a lot unless it is for a human who you genuinely do not trust to make system level changes. One big challenge with UAC on Windows is that Windows started with everyone being a superuser, so there are actions that auto-elevate you or even just you’re inherently elevated by being in the Administrators group. MacOS started from UNIX roots and it was never taken for granted that the primary user has root access.macOS’s elevation system still requires either a password or Touch ID input, which also alleviates the concern around malware installing a VNC client to auto click through elevations for you, etc. On top of all of that, macOS further restricts you by making even root or the kernel of macOS insufficiently privileged. If you want to install kernel extensions or turn off security features like the read only system volume, you must physically press and hold the power button to get into a recovery environment, making it impossible for malware, even with exploits, to get you there.Sure once in a blue moon there is something like a sudo exploit or a really strange escalation path but it’s so rare I wouldn’t worry about it.TLDR: your default user account is basically a standard user account until you enter your password in an elevation prompt. There’s basically no path for malware to auto-escalate itself without going through you.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MacDefender, post: 949487, member: 83059"] I would say not a lot unless it is for a human who you genuinely do not trust to make system level changes. One big challenge with UAC on Windows is that Windows started with everyone being a superuser, so there are actions that auto-elevate you or even just you’re inherently elevated by being in the Administrators group. MacOS started from UNIX roots and it was never taken for granted that the primary user has root access. macOS’s elevation system still requires either a password or Touch ID input, which also alleviates the concern around malware installing a VNC client to auto click through elevations for you, etc. On top of all of that, macOS further restricts you by making even root or the kernel of macOS insufficiently privileged. If you want to install kernel extensions or turn off security features like the read only system volume, you must physically press and hold the power button to get into a recovery environment, making it impossible for malware, even with exploits, to get you there. Sure once in a blue moon there is something like a sudo exploit or a really strange escalation path but it’s so rare I wouldn’t worry about it. TLDR: your default user account is basically a standard user account until you enter your password in an elevation prompt. There’s basically no path for malware to auto-escalate itself without going through you. [/QUOTE]

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