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Apps and passwords stored in keychain I did not set up

I appreciate you patience if this is a stupid question, but I am just trying to understand security basics and how somethings have appeared in my keychain.


I have never used facetime, iMessage, jabber or GameKit, yet they all appear in my key chain. Some with my actual password and id, others (auth-tokens I think) with my id and some incredibly complex password, all for services I never set up directly. Is this part of the automatic set up on mountain lion?


Gamecenter shows up in console as ignoring User and Group permissions, yet I did not activate game center..


There is also a com.apple.scopedbookmarksagent.xpc that I did not set up and does not show a password when I try and view it in the keychain app.


Are any of things normal? Are there any security risks here?


I would just like to know for my own education and peace of mind and would not want to accidentally delete something that is important to the function of my machine.


I would deeply appreciate some insight here.


Thanks!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Jun 24, 2013 11:57 PM

Reply
4 replies

Jun 25, 2013 1:27 AM in response to jp66177

As stated, Keychain Access doesn't just store passwords, but also authentication services used by lots of services every time you boot your mac. FaceTime, iMessage and Game Centre will all have their own entries once you have set up iCloud. The bookmarks agent you mention is a part of the Apple sand boxing security feature.


Most of these are created by the system, or Apple's defaults from the install. The only ones that are "yours" are the login keychain or any secondary keychains you create.


The names will tell you what the items relate to, so you can troubleshoot individual problems. For instance, if you are having trouble logging on to a particular service, like a FTP server, you could delete the entry and re-enter the password.


The Wikipedia entry if fairly good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain_(Apple)

Apps and passwords stored in keychain I did not set up

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