Worrying news if you own a Mac.
A new Apple Mac system update has made it worryingly easy for someone to hack into your Mac laptop.
If you’re one of those who has updated your system on your MacBook to the latest OS High Sierra, then we have some bad news for you.
The new system reportedly includes a major security flaw that makes it as easy as four letters to hack into your computer.
The flaw means that anyone can access your computer by simply typing the word ‘root’ into the username box – yep, it’s now that easy.
A password prompt that authenticates as root with an empty password would be a black eye for any OS. Never mind one from a security and privacy-conscious company such as Apple. God help any school admins of Mac deployments whose students will see this before they do
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) November 28, 2017
Apple made a statement on the issue earlier today, saying:
“We are working on a software update to address this issue. In the meantime, setting a root password prevents unauthorised access to your Mac.
“To enable the Root User and set a password, please follow the instructions here.
“If a Root User is already enabled, to ensure a blank password is not set, please follow the instructions from the ‘Change the root password’ section.”
We’ll be getting on that ASAP then.
