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macOS High Sierra has a critical 'root' security bug — here's what you need to do right now

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A critical flaw has been discovered in macOS High Sierra that lets an attacker with physical access to your Mac login as 'root' simply by leaving the password field blank and trying multiple times in a row. Here's how to "fix" it right now.

This is a zero day exploit. Lemi Orhan Ergin tweeted to Apple's support account that he had discovered a way to log into a Mac running High Sierra by using the superuser "root" and then clicking the login button repeatedly.

Ergin should absolutely have disclosed this to Apple and given the company a chance to patch it before it went public, but that's a bandaid on an axe wound at this point. The bug should never have gotten into the wild.

It looks like the "root" account is supposed to be disabled by default on macOS and, for whatever reason, that didn't happen on High Sierra. And that means root access is available and, worse, available without a password. So, anybody who has physical access to your Mac and enters "root" can blast their way through pretty much any and all security and gain complete control over the machine.

It looks like either setting the "root" password or properly disabling "root" (or both) can mitigate the problem, at least until Apple issues a fix. (We're testing several versions of this and will update with step-by-step instructions ASAP.)

In the meantime, share this information with everyone you know who uses a Mac on High Sierra and make sure they test and validate that "root" access is blogged before you let them resume their day.

macOS High Sierra

macOS Sierra



from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog http://ift.tt/2zNqnEf
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