That Panther Bug...

Matts on 2003-10-27T09:03:27

Now the NDA is off, I can reveal the security bug that they fixed for me.

OS X finally includes a "Lock Screen on Wake" option, so I don't have to worry about someone stealing my iBook and instantly being able to access it by just opening the lid (yeah I know they can get at the hard drive, but some crims aren't as smart as that). But there was a bug with it - if you had the screen locked and you plugged in an external screen, that external screen wouldn't be locked (or a black mask the size of your original screen would be migrated to the new screen). So you could effectively run programs or access the finder, (and thus kill the screen lock) without the password.

It's a small thing, that there are a number of ways around, but it's important to fix even minor security bugs.


encryption

2shortplanks on 2003-10-27T10:20:46

They can't just access private info off of the hdd if you've encrypted your home directory. So it's *really* important that if you've provided unencryption info when you logged in that the password protected screensaver works.