4 disks called "Creedence Cryptex" appeared on my desktop

patrickfrompaducah wrote:

After getting online with Apple

[...]

The drive will still be used by Apple Criptex stuff, but not annoy you.

Did Apple support tell you why those ...Cryptex.dmg files were recently introduced to external boot drives?

So, @patrickfrompaducah , it only appears for those booting Sequoia from an external drive if I follow you correctly... or do you mean anyone with external drives on their Sequoia computer?

Thanks,

Patrice

That's kind of scary... I have experimented almost the same, but I had installed only 4 apps that I trust for the moment on top of the OS. I've succeed formatting the Creedence drive by stopping a deamon. I was then able to unmount it. Then I have scanned my whole drive with Bitdefender Virus scanner but found nothing. My Mac CPU was used abnormally by some invisible background process though. Also the WindowServer seems to use too much CPU. My CPU is always at 100% even if I do nothing. So I have reinstalled Sequoia. Now the background activity is less suspicious but still anormal I think... I will try to do a clean reinstall of sequoia probably tomorrow to see if that "new virus" still use my cpu or the Creedence reappears.

It was using 100% of my CPU, and even after reinstalling the OS,(not a clean install though) it still uses, most of the time, a lot of background processing. The WindowsServer deamon for exemple use too much processing even if I do nothing except monitoring with the activity monitor. That is suspicious...

I've just experienced the same on my iMac. I have a feeling it is related to the Cisco Any Connect app and the connecting over VPN. But would welcome any suggestions to fix it.

My other theory is that it is the DropBox change to being a "location" from being a folder.

FWIW, your claimed solution didn't work for me. I deactivated all login items and rebooted but I still have four of these 4.1MB disk images showing up in disk utility. Sometimes they mount on the desktop and sometimes they don't.

I tried a suggestion on another forum to reformat them in Ex-FAT, erase hidden contents and eject them but this didn't work either.

It's quite mysterious. It's rare for me to come across an issue I can't fix but this has me beat.

I have the same problem with the credence cryptex showing as a container disk in disk utility I can’t unmount it because it’s being used so I can delete it either. I did go into settings and turned off everything that launches at startup. I rebooted. No change What is this disk for. Have I been hacked?

I did a shut down and reboot yesterday afternoon after Photoshop locked up on me. Once my computer (2019 iMac) was back up and running I finished up my work and didn't touch my the computer for the rest of the day. Later in the evening I received a notice on my iPhone to reset my Apple ID password. It's been a couple of years since I've last saw one of these. Thinking that someone out in the wild is trying to get access to my Apple account, I just ignored it.

This morning I sit down at my computer and notice this unknown "Creedence ........ cryptex" disk mounted. Thinking that someone actually got into my Apple account my blood pressure started to quickly rise.

Glad to learn that this is something not to worry about but I can't help wondering if the request to reset my Apple ID password and this "Creedence ........ cryptex" disk are related.

That doesn’t explain that abnormal background activity, especially network activity I was seeing in activity monitor though. At first I thought it was a developer’s Trojan horse so they could spy on testing machines array. Personally, I have reinstalled everything because it was easy for me cause it was an old machine I was just starting reinstalling everything new on it.😅

Its got nothing to do to icloud. The TrustStore image is on your Mac, and its a virus.

It creates local certificates in your computer, it then allows mobile activation, it runs an active directory or a Mac Open directory, remote ssh connections through your terminal. it can upload a developer certificate in Chrome

to curtail your access, setup a local dns server on http, create firmlinks to System frameworks, take advantage of open ports on your router, still cookies, embed iframes on Safari , manipulate headers

etc etc etc because it can create its own paper. I mean certificates.

An Mdm without having to register it with Apple.

Like owning a gun without serial numbers. lol

I too have this issue but there were 52 visible disks present on my screen. Glad to know it’s harmless. Still annoying though

@etresoft

What would be an example of a 3rd party system modification app?

I am having the same issue. I have multiple such disks on my desktop. I am able to eject these disks, however, they keep reaprearing for some reason. Anyone know how to solve this?

Strange, the weird APFS entry isn't seen when booted from internal SSD, Ventura 14.7.1.

Fortunately, for me, nothing appears on the desktop…