How to format an Apple Silicon Mac to get rid of malware?

[Populus]

So, with my old Intel Macs, if something wrong happened and I accidentally installed something suspicious, the quick way to get the Mac clean again was connecting a macOS thumb drive, booting from the thumb drive holding the option key, and then deleting the entire disk and proceeding with a new Install.

With Apple Silicon Macs, as far as I know, you do need another Apple Silicon Mac to perform a DFU restore.

Am I missing something? Is there a way to perform a clean install, that even deleted the system volume, and reinstalls it? I mean, just in case some nasty worm could have gotten into the system volume.

And before you say it, yes, backups and safe practices bla bla bla… okay, but what IF a nasty malware sneaks into my system volume? Let’s assume it’s a possibility that exist. Let’s assume it’s happened. The erase and reset option from Settings, as far as I know, only deletes the data volume, not the system volume…


Thank you.

PS: if you think this post is better on the Apple Silicon forum, go ahead and move it.

 

[Boppi]

For all common level malware scenarios Erase All is sufficient. After that reset if the malware still somehow persists, or it's truly state-level and has infected the recoveryOS as well, then a DFU reset would be in order.

 

[Mrbobb]

With Intel, I used Carbon Copy Cloner.

With M chips, the updated CCC sounds like it will work but it wants me to pay again even though I have a Intel license, time for a change, Super Duper! is completely free so I shall give it a try. There was a third App but I forgot the name but is a yearly subscription thing which am against.

Using the above Apps, you backup the system folders when everything is configured and works correctly, san data to save room, to an external drive, HDD or Flash, is bootable. The apps will make the external bootable, so if something gone south, just boot with the recovery drive, quick format the built-in, restore system from external, reboot. No need to install from clean nor worry about custom configurations you spent so much time on.

Super Duper! suggests quick format built-in before restoring.