Secure a hackintosh

[Johanneso]

Hi!
I didn't have time to wait for a new Mac Pro or build my own Hackintosh so I ordered one from a british company. I have a somewhat special need to run W7 (I know, I know) so it's configured and preinstalled as such.

However, one thought that keeps sneaking up on me is "What if they built in some backdoor, spyware or other stuff like that?". I know I could simply format and reinstall Windows just to be sure, but I would wish to avoid that since the installation is a bit custom in order to get W7 working on modern hardware (skylake, thunderbolt 3 card, Samsung 960 NVMe et cetera).

I mean, I'll run Windows Defender and check with AVG but there's probably nasty things that they won't catch.
What would you recommend?

 

[vailr]

What "British company" sells a Hackintosh and then ships it to the U.S.?
If you're not worried about the Apple software, then why worry about the Win 7 software?
"Don't worry, be happy".
Anyway: how much did the shipping cost?
However, a complete re-format & re-install of Win 7 shouldn't be all that difficult.
Just put each O.S. on separate hard drives/SSD's, and use the bios setup to select which O.S. you want to run.

 

[Johanneso]

Well in actuality the British company ships it to Sweden...

I should perhaps be equally worried about the Mac OS part 😉

So the main question is; is there a way to reliably search for any backdoors or such?

 

[vailr]

Your best option would be to re-format and re-install Windows, from a "known good" copy.
Otherwise, there are anti-virus solutions that run "live" from a bootable USB or burned optical disc.
Examples:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/kaspersky_rescue_disk.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/avira_antivir_rescue_system.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/dr_web_livecd_liveusb.html
Maybe run all three of those, and then consider your Windows installation secure.

 

[Kaido]

Regarding connection monitoring:

For Windows, check out Glasswire. The free version is pretty good, although the $49 fee for a personal license = a lifetime license.& keeps a 6-month visual history of all connections from your computer.

https://www.glasswire.com

For Mac, check out Little Snitch: ($45, or $47 with the Micro Snitch bundle for monitoring your mic & camera as well)

https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html


Regarding OS re-installation:

As others have mentioned, you can always just do a re-install of the OS to make sure it's clean. The Windows 7 ISO's are available here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

You can grab your Windows key with stuff like Nirsoft's ProduKey or Belarc Advisor. You also don't need a disc to install it, you can just burn the ISO to a bootable USB stick using this utility:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

You can re-download the OSX image from the Mac App Store & then burn it to a USB stick using Diskmaker X:

http://diskmakerx.com


Regarding OS imaging:

As soon as you get your computer, you can clone the operating systems using free software. For Windows, here's Macrium Reflect:

https://www.macrium.com

For Mac, here's SuperDuper:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

 

[Kaido]

Hi!
I didn't have time to wait for a new Mac Pro or build my own Hackintosh so I ordered one from a british company. I have a somewhat special need to run W7 (I know, I know) so it's configured and preinstalled as such.

However, one thought that keeps sneaking up on me is "What if they built in some backdoor, spyware or other stuff like that?". I know I could simply format and reinstall Windows just to be sure, but I would wish to avoid that since the installation is a bit custom in order to get W7 working on modern hardware (skylake, thunderbolt 3 card, Samsung 960 NVMe et cetera).

I mean, I'll run Windows Defender and check with AVG but there's probably nasty things that they won't catch.
What would you recommend?

Curious to know more details about pre-built Hackintoshes. Is it a company or is it that place that sells them pre-configured from eBay?

As far as backdoors & spyware goes, there is a risk for malware in the custom bootloader. I would assume they're using Clover, so you can always re-install it yourself from the open-source version on SourceForge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/

Some nerdy stuff if you feel like reading up on it:

https://clover-wiki.zetam.org/Contents