Hi everyone! I’ve recently got my first ever Mac, it’s a MacBook Air M1 (16 GB).
My question is about malware, viruses and things like that. So, I’ve managed to create a VM of a MacBook Air M1 (8GB) with the same OS as the main machine on an external SSD, not logged into Apple and no personal information saved, not even accessibility to the keychain. My plan for this was to run suspicious apps, visit suspicious sites, basic stuff. The main machine is connected to the iCloud Private Relay, the VM isn’t.
My question is: if this virtual machine was to be hacked, infected by something or gained remote access or something, could the main machine be effected in any way? Could I be affected by any means?
In theory yes. In reality it is highly unlikely to the point that you shouldn’t worry about it.
If someone happens to find an exploit that lets them execute code on the host machine or access to memory addresses that aren’t theirs. Then 100% they could infect everything.
Likelihood very low, would have to be the perfect storm of exploit plus permissions plus apples permissions to access stuff being broad enough that it can do what it wants.
If you are super paranoid, your Mac is taking snapshots of your disk in the background so you can always restore back every single time you do something questionable
Thank you for the detailed answer!