0 Macs: Even More Vulnerable Than I Aready Knew!

A client called that had changed the password on their Mac (OSX 10.7.3) and forgot what they changed it to. It needed to be reset, but they had no way of logging in to reset it.

I did a little research and quickly came up with a simple process that was shocking! Simply:

• Starting the Mac with two keys pressed brought it up in a terminal session logged in as root (the most authoritative user on the system).
• Three simple commands produced a list of all users on the computer (their short names), and
• One more command allowed me to change any of those users' passwords to whatever I wanted.
• Then a simple reboot allowed me to login as them with their new password, giving me access to all of their files!

It really is that easy to completely hijack a Mac and all of its contents!

Are you kidding me, Apple?!!? Can't you at least require a password or some other methodology to protect the files on your computers?

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