

- #Keychain on mac keeps asking for password update
- #Keychain on mac keeps asking for password software
- #Keychain on mac keeps asking for password code
- #Keychain on mac keeps asking for password password
7 at 11:55 p.m.: Adds comment from Linus Henze. So for now, you should only consider this if you think of yourself as a high value target for hackers. The only problem? You'll have to go back and manually unlock your keychain if you want to allow apps to access it. Then in your top right screen, right click on the menu item that says "login." Select "lock keychain login" from the drop down menu that appears. Type in "keychain access" and select the program that comes up. To do that, you find the spotlight search bar by hitting command + space. If you're still concerned, you can manually lock your Mac's keychains. And even though Henze has discussed the flaw publicly, he hasn't told potential hackers all the steps they'd need to take to re-create his malicious app.
#Keychain on mac keeps asking for password software
Hackers would still need to implant malicious software on your computer. That doesn't leave you totally vulnerable to this flaw, though. Wardle echoed that position, saying the best way for Apple to ensure that the highly sensitive keychain is secure would be to encourage security researchers to find flaws by paying them.
#Keychain on mac keeps asking for password code
Henze said he's declining to give Apple details of his malicious code because the company doesn't pay researchers when they find flaws that hackers can exploit. The exploit can access passwords in the "login" and "System" keychain, and it affects Macs running Apple's Mohave operating system (or any MacOS released prior to that), Henze said. "All you need is the password," Wardle said.Īpple didn't provide a comment for this story. Then they could log back in to your accounts legitimately. Instead of maintaining an unauthorized presence on your computer with malware, they could simply get all of your login credentials and then delete the malicious program.

Still, the results would be very useful for any hacker who succeeded. But to target you, hackers first have to get you to run malicious software on your Mac, which is a "high prerequisite," Wardle said. "Normal Mac users should care about this flaw because most Apps store passwords inside the keychain (Online Banking Apps for example) and with my Exploit attackers are able to have access to all these passwords," Henze told CNET in a direct message on Twitter.Īpple security researcher Patrick Wardle said he's seen the exploit up close and can confirm it works.

Henze, who tweeted out the YouTube demonstration on Sunday, is 18 years old and lives in Germany, he told CNET from his twitter account. As the malicious application works, it pulls up a list of passwords for apps that commonly interface with computers, like Facebook and Twitter. It takes advantage of a flaw in the code that runs a Mac's internal stores of passwords, called keychains. Click OK when done, then quit Keychain Access.A malicious app running on your Mac could steal your cache of passwords, a teenage security researcher has found.Ĭalling his exploit KeySteal, Linus Henze demonstrated on YouTube how the attack would work.
#Keychain on mac keeps asking for password password
Enter the same password in the Verify field. This is the password you're now using to log in to your Mac.

This is the password you were using before the password was reset.
#Keychain on mac keeps asking for password update
If you know your old password, use that password to update your existing login keychain:
