Is the Mac OS really this easy to crack?

ANY computer and any OS can be cracked when a person has direct access to the computer. To say the Mac OS has little to no security is utterly laughable.

Ask these people how many viruses have been written that have worked in any version of OS X since its inception. That would be, and still is zero. Then ask them how many new Windows viruses are found every week.

You can set File Vault 2 (whole disk encryption)

You can enable a firmware password.

The whole disk encryption alone should stop anyone as long as they do not get access while the system is not locked.

This is not specific to the Mac. Any time a hacker has physical access to any computer - Mac, Windows, Linux, whatever - data can be accessed almost trivially.

The only exception to this is data that is properly encrypted. Such data cannot be accessed by a hacker, provided that the encryption is strong, and that the password is strong and not stored somewhere that the hacker can access. On a Mac, you can accomplish this with FileVault, as Bob mentions. Automatic login must be disabled, and the user password must be strong. This will keep an attacker out of your data... unless they can get you to subvert your own system by installing malware, but that's very rare on the Mac.

My way of handling that is to have all of my personal data encrypted with 1Password. Then I copy only the data I am currently working on physically on my MBP from my Mac Pro where I maintain all of my data. In this way they only would get the project I am currently working on at the time.

Allan

Dlawn wrote:

Allan, With 1Password does it protect the mac's system password from being bypassed

No. 1Password simply provides an encrypted file in which you can store things like passwords and credit card numbers, along with software to make it easy to extract those things from the encrypted file and insert them on websites. It's very good at that, but it does not provide encryption of your documents or your hard drive.

1Password can also store encrypted notes, but NOT another apps formatted documents.