When our security engineers became aware of the issue Tuesday afternoon, we immediately began working on an update that closes the security hole. Security is a top priority for every Apple product, and regrettably we stumbled with this release of MacOS. Open the Mac App Store and click the Updates tab to install Security Update 2017-001.Īn Apple spokesperson gave this statement: On Wednesday, Apple released a security update to patch this vulnerability. After using this root trick in System Preferences, we were then able to log into a locked Mac by choosing Other in the login screen and then entering 'root' and no password. In our testing, it only took two attempts to unlock the padlock and gain access to an administrator account without a password.

It may not work the first time, but trying it additional times will unlock the padlock, giving anyone access to your computer. Thanks to the bug, however, one could simply enter 'root' as the username and leave the password field blank. To make changes in this menu normally requires a password - you have to click the padlock icon in the lower left corner, which prompts you to enter a username and password.

Originally brought to light on Twitter by developer Lemi Orhan Ergin, the bug appeared when you opened System Preferences and go to Users & Groups. A bug was discovered in MacOS High Sierra on Tuesday that allows anyone to log in to your computer using the username 'root' with no password.

Reset admin password mac os high sierra