FileVault Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Your Mac's connection to Harry Potter

by Steven Sande (May 17th, 2013)

The next time you wish to hack into a Mac, it may help to grab your wand and book of spells. At the NoSuchCon security conference this week, security architect Alex Ionescu presented a talk where he revealed that special undocumented code on a Mac's SMC (system management controller) can be ...

New command line tools in Mountain Lion manage encryption, sleep and sharing

by TJ Luoma (Jul 30th, 2012)

For fans of the Terminal, Mountain Lion brought some new command-line utilities. Perhaps the most notable is fdesetup, which Apple explains briefly: "fdesetup allows third-party management tools to enable FileVault, determine encryption status, capture and manage recovery keys, and add users to a ...

Mountain Lion 101: Finder encryption via contextual menu (updated)

by Mike Schramm (Jul 27th, 2012)

[Post updated, see below.] Whole-drive encryption isn't one of the sexiest features in OS X, but it's nice to know it's there. FileVault 2 (introduced in Lion; the original FileVault began in 10.3 Panther) can be very useful, especially for Mac users with sensitive information on their hard ...

More updates: Safari 5.1.7 will block out-of-date Flash plugins, tech note updated on FileVault bug

by Michael Rose (May 9th, 2012)

It's a busy Wednesday in the software mines of Cupertino, as Apple followed up the release of OS X 10.7.4 with a patch to the Safari browser and a tech note detailing how to back out from the password/plain text issue in legacy FileVault accounts and other circumstances. Safari 5.1.7 patches ...

Passwords stored in plain text after Lion update

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 7th, 2012)

Legacy FileVault users (those who used FileVault before Lion) running a recently updated version of Mac OS X Lion should consider changing their login passwords. According to a report in ZDNet, an Apple programmer inadvertently left a debug flag in the latest 10.7.3 version of Mac OS X that turns ...

Prevent certain accounts from unlocking FileVault 2

by TJ Luoma (Dec 12th, 2011)

FileVault 2 is a huge improvement over the original FileVault implementation, offering whole disk encryption with no noticeable performance penalty. The only downside is that every account on the computer (even "standard," non-administrator accounts) is given access to decrypt the drive. The good ...

Will 10.7 add a "safe deposit box" to your Mac?

by Josh Helfferich (Feb 21st, 2011)

It seems as though Apple is hard at work on new features for OS X 10.7 Lion this summer, and the latest possible addition to the OS is something that would solve a huge problem plaguing the tech world today -- insecurity with remote file storage. According to this find by Patently Apple, we may see ...

Mac 101: 7 tips for Data Privacy Day 2009

by Robert Palmer (Jan 28th, 2009)

Today is Data Privacy Day, a global initiative to highlight information security rights and practices, especially among teens, professionals, corporations, and the government. As part of the celebration, TUAW (along with our sister blog Download Squad) has seven good ideas for you about how to keep ...

Mac 101: Protect your data with FileVault

by Cory Bohon (Aug 4th, 2008)

If you use a notebook Mac, then the risks are higher for getting your computer stolen. However, Apple has included a tool to protect your entire home folder (documents, pictures, movies, etc.) right within OS X. FileVault protects your computer against stolen data by encrypting/decrypting your home ...

Behind the scenes with FileVault

by Scott McNulty (Dec 29th, 2006)

FileVault is the Home directory encryption feature of OS X (introduced in Pather) which Apple bills as offering, 'Eternal Protection.' Apple hasn't produced much documentation on FileVault, I suppose in hopes that no one would find an easy way to hack it. A presentation at the 23rd Chaos Computing ...

Your data is safer on a Mac

by Scott McNulty (Sep 20th, 2006)

Ok, so I'm using a dash of hyperbole in the title of this post, but Simson Garfinkel (writing for Computerworld) does recommend Apple portables based on security functionality alone. He highlights Filevault, secure virtual memory, and secure empty trash as the features of OS X that make Apple ...

How do I reset my Keychain password?

by Scott McNulty (Jul 20th, 2006)

Yesterday I was singing the praises of Keychain, and I still stand by my assessment. Keychain is a key feature of OS X that makes it stand apart from Windows. But what happens if you forget your Keychain password? You know, the password that lets you access all your other, heavily encrypted data? ...

Knox version 1.0.7 is available

by Dave Caolo (Apr 20th, 2006)

I'll admit it, I don't want people poking around my Mac. While I may want certain files encrypted, Apple's File Vault would be overkill for my needs. That's why I use Knox. With Knox, you can quickly create password-protected, encrypted volumes that you alone can gain access to. You can even ...