Reception of System Integrity Protection has been mixed. For instance, versions of macOS prior to Mac OS X Leopard enforce level 1 of securelevel, a security feature that originates in BSD and its derivatives upon which macOS is partially based. Restricting the power of root is not unprecedented on macOS. Whenever a user on such a system is prompted and enters their account password – which Martel says is often weak or non-existent – the security of the entire system is potentially compromised. He stated that most installations of macOS have only one user account that necessarily carries administrative credentials with it, which means that most users can grant root access to any program that asks for it.

In one of the WWDC developer sessions, Apple engineer Pierre-Olivier Martel described unrestricted root access as one of the remaining weaknesses of the system, saying that ' piece of malware is one password or vulnerability away from taking full control of the device'. Apple says that System Integrity Protection is a necessary step to ensure a high level of security.

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