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Major Security Flaw in macOS High Sierra: Root Access Without a Password

November 29, 2017

Not good Apple. The latest problem with macOS High Sierra is another "black eye" for Apple's latest OS. The issue is that someone can gain root access to your system with about 30 seconds of physical access (local or remote). Think of root access as a super administrator. The scary part is that the root access is achievable without a password. It's not difficult at all to create the root access with just a few button clicks. Perhaps the engineers at Apple are trying to go retro and take us back to the Windows 95/98 days when you could bypass a logon password by just pressing the ESC key. Ah, those good old days seem to have returned if you are a Mac user. Apparently, disabling the root account doesn't seem to work as is indicated by one of the comments on the KrebsonSecurity blog.

The good news is that there is a workaround that will provide a temporary fix until Apple provides a patch. Basically, the solution is to intentionally create a root user ID and set a password. Many of the online publications have posted the simple solution. If you are a macOS High Sierra user, make sure you implement the workaround now and I would suggest not following Apple's instructions.

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