Apples Password App ....... Not Safe!!!

[Pinkpoison]

Just thinking out loud here, but if your Mac is going in for a purely hardware repair, could you not just remove your hard drive and tell the tech that they will have to use their own boot drive to test it allowing them in without access to your data?

I'm not sure anyone would want to go those lengths, I certainly wouldn't .....

 

[scifan57]

Just thinking out loud here, but if your Mac is going in for a purely hardware repair, could you not just remove your hard drive and tell the tech that they will have to use their own boot drive to test it allowing them in without access to your data?

The SSD chips on a Mac with Apple Silicon are soldered directly to the logic board.

 

[carolineM]

Just thinking out loud here, but if your Mac is going in for a purely hardware repair, could you not just remove your hard drive and tell the tech that they will have to use their own boot drive to test it allowing them in without access to your data?

I would not want to remove the hard drive from my MacBook!

 

[Pinkpoison]

I would not want to remove the hard drive from my MacBook!

Me neither even if it were possible

 

[scifan57]

Just thinking out loud here, but if your Mac is going in for a purely hardware repair, could you not just remove your hard drive and tell the tech that they will have to use their own boot drive to test it allowing them in without access to your data?

Another solution would be to make a Time Machine backup of your MacBook Pro, then restore your Mac to factory settings. After getting it back from service you can restore your Mac from the Time Machine backup.

 

[ThatTechyGuy]

For me, the convenience of the passwords app outweighs any of the potential security risks. As far as the user password, I would make a Guest account for any access at a tech shop. That is what the Apple Store asks you to do for Genius Bar repairs. Even if the Admin password for your account is changed from the Guest Admin account, you'll have to reauthorize the passwords app with your iCloud password, which you should never give out to anyone.

Furthermore, if something was compromised, the most important accounts all have 2-factor authentication with my authenticator app. SMS authentication is less secure, especially in the scenario where a computer shop has your Mac that can receive all your messages.

Storing passwords anywhere always comes with a security risk. Big companies (Especially password managers putting a target on their back) can always be breached, and I find that scenario more likely to occur than a third-party computer shop stealing your passwords when you bring in your computer for a repair.

 

[Pinkpoison]

Ok, thanks for that .....