Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk
From: James Goodlet <J.S.Goodlet () sussex ac uk>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 10:23:51 +0100
On 17/7/04 5:17 am -0700, Kurt Seifried wrote:
To quote myself: http://www.seifried.org/lasg/system/index.html Unfortunately if you are using Apple hardware you cannot secure the boot process in any meaningful manner. While booting if the user holds down the command-option-P-R keys it will wipe any settings that exist, there is no way to avoid this.
Err, have you actually tried that? See <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482>and note the section which states that one of the effects of turning on "Open Firmware Password Protection" is that it "Blocks a reset of Parameter RAM (PRAM) by pressing the Command-Option-P-R key combination during startup". This has certainly been my experience here.
Your point on physical security though is well made, and it is trivial to defeat most BIOS controls if you have physical access to the device.
James -- James Goodlet, Head of Infrastructure Services, IT Services, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QJ GPG: E214 6C8F 785F 95CC 33E3 A72E A6FE D13D 055A B934
Current thread:
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Adi Kriegisch (Jul 15)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Theo Van Dinter (Jul 17)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Adi Kriegisch (Jul 24)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Ray Slakinski (Jul 17)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk johnny (Jul 17)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Kurt Seifried (Jul 18)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Chris Boyd (Jul 19)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk James Goodlet (Jul 19)
- RE: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Michael Shirk (Jul 19)
- Re: Mac OS X stores login/Keychain/FileVault passwords on disk Theo Van Dinter (Jul 17)