Last week a vulnerability was discovered in macOS that allowed anybody to access a machine using the username ‘root’ and a blank password.
The hole was patched but that created another issue that prevented users from connecting to and authenticating with file shares. There is a fix but it requires a bit of Terminal know-how.
At the weekend it was reported that the macOS bug affectionately given the moniker #IAmRoot had reappeared.
It turns out that if you were running a version of macOS older than version 10.13.1, and then installed the security patch Apple sent down the line last week, the #IAmRoot bug reappears.
As it turns out Apple forgot to put a rather vital piece of information within the security update 2017-001 documentation.
To stop #IAmRoot from reappearing users need to reboot their machine to insure that the software update is properly configured.
So to make sure #IAmRoot is properly ousted from your system – install security update 2017-001 and then restart.
If you have already installed the patch and haven’t rebooted now might be a good time to do just that.
Here’s hoping this week is better for Apple’s security team – for the sake of the users.
[Via – Ars Technica] [Image – CC 0 Public Domain Pixabay]