external Hard drive OS use

[endoftheroad]

If I have 2018 Mini and I name it "Dumbass"
then set up and external Hard drive with an OS and name it "Smartass"

If I open up the external OS "Smartass" and surf the web

can malicious attacks see or attack "Dumbass"
or is it blocked/stopped at "Smartass"

and yes im asking a serious question in a smartass way because im a dumbass

cheers
John

 

[Amethyst1]

can malicious attacks see or attack "Dumbass"

Yes, because the internal hard drive is also mounted, and thus fully accessible, while booted from the external drive.

 

[rpmurray]

The problem with malicious attacks is that they really want to install an invisible persistent background process on your Mac that's always running, even after a reboot. If you boot from Smartass, and then unmount Dumbass before surfing, it won't be attacked ... yet. But if you at some later time mount Dumbass while Smartass is running then it can be attacked, even if that's months down the road, as long as the malicious process is still installed on Smartass.

 

[endoftheroad]

thanks all
im not as much of a dumbass now