Sunday 26 August 2012

Mac Password Hacking





I had an interesting task at work last week. I had to prepare a Mac for some testing. 
I did some searching on Google and found a page that discusses how to hack passwords on a Mac. Various methods suggested on several pages and diffrent comments to that page had failed. Figuring I had nothing to lose I decided to try mixing the methods I had found until I found one that worked.
After only about 2 or 3 tries I came across the following method that worked for me:
  1. Restart Mac and at the login window,
  2. While the mac is restarting after chime, press and hold  “Command and S” Keys until you see text scrolling through the window. This boots the computer into single user mode.
  3. At the Localhost% prompt type:
    /sbin/fsck -y [Enter]
    /sbin/mount -uw / [Enter]
    sh /etc/rc[Enter]
  4. When the Localhost% prompt reappears, type:
passwd [username]
(Replace [username] with the username you want to change and leave out the brackets.)
You will then be prompted to type a new password for this user 2 times.
  1. After entering the new password, type:
    reboot
  2. At the login window, enter the username with the new password.Voila!
  3. Done!!!! enjoy your Mac

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