Apple scrambles to fix a major security issue on their High Sierra OS
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
And Apple's method of the "fix" doesn't work (ie through the GUI). Tried it on 3 separate machines at work this morning, and a system restart will reset the changes. Only way to guarantee it will retain the changes is to do:
cat /dev/urandom | env LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc a-zA-Z0-9 | head -c 60 | xargs -I rootpw sudo dscl . -passwd /Users/root rootpw
cat /dev/urandom | env LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc a-zA-Z0-9 | head -c 60 | xargs -I rootpw sudo dscl . -passwd /Users/root rootpw
Last edited:
AlienALX
Well-known member
So you need to reinstall it? FFS. I had this issue with Sierra, too ! I upgraded the laptop to Sierra, then every sodding time I rebooted it said "You have just updated your firmware". Only way to make it go away was a reinstall. I've only just installed HS FFS. This is not why I bought an Apple laptop ! I didn't want the headaches LOL.
I added some clarification to the end of my post, but clearly not quick enough - just run this in terminal:
cat /dev/urandom | env LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc a-zA-Z0-9 | head -c 60 | xargs -I rootpw sudo dscl . -passwd /Users/root rootpw
As you should never actually need the root password, having it generate a random password won't be an issue. It's just one of the many quirks with macOS's GUI ACL, post Lion.
barnsley
born in a.....
Give root a password to temporarily stop the issue. Especially if you remote in to your Mac from home/work 
In terminal type:
sudo passwd -u root
The patch is out btw. Not that half the Mac users in the world ever seem to update their devices. Although the same could be said for every OS..
In terminal type:
sudo passwd -u root
The patch is out btw. Not that half the Mac users in the world ever seem to update their devices. Although the same could be said for every OS..
Patch is out
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208315
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208315
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