My external drive with Time machine backup of my computer is stolen. I am not sure if the data was encrypted. Can the data on the drive be accessed by the thief? Can I remotely erase the data on the drive to prevent misuse? What safeguards do I take to prevent any access to / misuse of information on that drive.
iPad Pro, iPadOS 15
Yes it can possibly be read. No, you can remotely erase it.
The usually safeguards are suggested: change all your passwords to strong ones and watch your financial institutions for unusual/unauthorized activity. You treat it exactly you would a stolen Mac, you just can't do anything remotely.
If your Mac is lost or stolen - Apple Support
ku4hx has provided a Prudent way to proceed, changing all your passwords. I second those suggestions.
You may not be in as much trouble as you fear.
Passwords and credit card numbers for Auto-Fill are stored in the Keychains file inside your /Users/your_userid folder. This file is ALWAYS encrypted, and requires your login password to be opened. Otherwise, it is total gibberish.
Your login password is never stored on your computer, in any form. Instead, as you type it in, it is encrypted on the fly. Once you say the characters of the password have all been entered, the encrypted result is compared to the encrypted password stored in your user Account. All your Mac ever knows is ¿was that it? It does not even know the password length.
And if your 'in the clear' login password is not stored on your computer, it can't be stored on any backups.
If you password was '123' or 'system', or any other single dictionary word, the thief might be able to get lucky and guess what is. To brute-force crack a strong password should take a decade or more of supercomputer time.
Time Machine Backup stolen
