"AKauthorization remote view" ? Did someone hack my macbook?

Question

So my macbook air was making a lot of noise. I opened the activity monitor and saw "akd" and "AKauthorization remote view" consuming most of the CPU (50%)+. So I stopped it and completely erased my macbook thinking it got hacked. Does anyone know what "AKauthorization remote view" is?

Answer 1

It is unlikely you have been hacked. A process on your Mac is likely trying to verify your Apple ID with Apple's Sign On services.

• AK = AuthKit
• AS = Authentication Services

Private AuthKitUI Framework

AKAuthorization appears to be part of Apple's private AuthKitUI framework. This framework is stored at /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AuthKitUI.framework on macOS.

The public Authentication Services likely uses AuthKitUI to provide the user interface:

Use the Authentication Services framework to improve the experience of users when they enter credentials to establish their identity.

• Give users the ability to sign into your services with their Apple ID.
• ...

It is likely AKAuthorizationRemoteViewService is a user interface element that shows content provided by a remote service.

See jujigo / DragonBuild source that mentions this framework's contents.

Given AuthKit (AK) is a System Programming Interface (SPI) – and thus private to Apple's engineers – only Apple can authoritatively answer this question. You should provide feedback to Apple about this behaviour.