Earlier this week, Apple MacBook and iMac owners were warned about a serious flaw in macOS which enabled anyone to access the computer – without a password.
The astonishing software bug, which was discovered by Turkish developer Lemi Ergin, allows anyone to gain powerful administrator rights and access any data stored on the machine with a very simple hack.
Once entry at this administrator level has been granted, it allows anyone to delete crucial system files, change administrator passwords, and add or remove system accounts.
Mr Egin says he discovered the flaw by simply entering the username “root” and leaving the password blank in the system admin settings.
After a few attempts he gained full administrator access to the Mac.
Express.co.uk tried the hack and can confirm that it does work.
Apple was forced to quickly issue a software fix for the devastating flaw, apologising to users in a statement.
“When our security engineers became aware of the issue Tuesday afternoon, we immediately began working on an update that closes the security hole,” a spokesperson told Express.co.uk.
“This morning, as of 8 a.m., the update is available for download, and starting later today it will be automatically installed on all systems running the latest version (10.13.1) of macOS High Sierra.
“We greatly regret this error and we apologise to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused.
“Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.”
Unfortunately, it appears macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 contains a fresh bug.
According to reports, file-sharing has been badly damaged by the new update to macOS High Sierra.
Fortunately, there is a fix.
The steps, as recommended by the Apple Support Pages, are as follows –
- Open the Terminal app on your macOS device, typically found in the Utilities sub-folder of your Application folder.
- Type sudo /usr/libexec/configureLocalKDC and press Return.
- Enter your administrator password and press Return.
- Quit Terminal.
This should solve any issues with file-sharing that have been thrown-up by macOS High Sierra 10.13.1.