Transparancy of Apple products

[DRDR1]

My daughter and son-in-law are in the process of starting an acrimonious separation.

They both have iPhones, iPads and Apple computers.

My daughter is computer illiterate whereas my son-in-law is the opposite, in addition he has an IT department he can call on.

My concern is the transparency between Apple products.

My daughter uses a Mac Book Pro for all her work and private material. Attached to that is an external hard drive. Her computer is password protected.
The hard drive recently disappeared for several days with my son-in-law claiming not to know where it was. It then reappeared miraculously just where it should have been all along. My daughter thinks he took it to the office and copied it.

Recently she saw his screen with a message something like ‘Cannot connect to Mac Book Pro’. Her machine was switched off at the time.

So my questions are ….
1. Is it possible to copy a hard drive and access the contents even if the machine it backed up was password protected?.
2. Is it possible to access another password protected Apple machine via the network, if the machine is switched on or in sleep mode, or simply being idle?.
3. Is there something she need do in order to ensure her data cannot be accessed.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

1. Yes, you can make a copy of a hard drive and access it. The password for the Mac is only for it, not attached peripherals. Is the external hard drive used for Time Machine backups?
2. No, you cannot access a Mac via the network without knowing the account/password of an account on the Mac. You cannot access it if the Mac is sleeping or powered off.
3. She can change/increase the difficulty of the password on her Mac. Do not leave the Mac unattended, and lock it in a secured location when not in use. When the external hard drive is not in use, disconnect it and place it in a secure location.

Hope that helps,

C

 

[MightyGem]

She can also encrypt the external drive:
http://osxdaily.com/2012/09/17/how-to-encrypt-an-external-drive-quickly-in-mac-os-x/

 

[Cory Cooper]

Understood MightyGem, but I have personal experience with more than a few folks having lost all of their data on encrypted volumes - FileVault included. If the drive starts to fail/has bad blocks, or even if it is unmounted improperly which can cause corruption, the drive is not readable any longer. If even part of an encrypted drive is corrupted, the entire volume is lost.

Just a friendly note.

C

 

[DRDR1]

Hello,

1. Yes, you can make a copy of a hard drive and access it. The password for the Mac is only for it, not attached peripherals. Is the external hard drive used for Time Machine backups?
2. No, you cannot access a Mac via the network without knowing the account/password of an account on the Mac. You cannot access it if the Mac is sleeping or powered off.
3. She can change/increase the difficulty of the password on her Mac. Do not leave the Mac unattended, and lock it in a secured location when not in use. When the external hard drive is not in use, disconnect it and place it in a secure location.

Hope that helps,

C

Cory thank you for that answer.
Yes the hard drive is used using Time Machine backups. I am a bit amazed that the computer password is not carried across.
Re accessing the machine via the network without password, that is good news.
She has a difficult password, but it is difficult to keep things locked away when still in the family home.
Thanks again

 

[DRDR1]

She can also encrypt the external drive:
http://osxdaily.com/2012/09/17/how-to-encrypt-an-external-drive-quickly-in-mac-os-x/

Thanks MightyGem but I think based on what Cory said I would not want to risk it. She has all her work stuff on there as well as personal stuff.

 

[DRDR1]

Cory, MightyGem I have mislead you both, for which I am sorry.
It seems that there are two external drives
My daughter was running out of space on her computer drive, this is due to the thousands of photos she takes. As a result she purchased an external drive.
It seems my son in law then moved all the photos from the computer to the hardsdrive. So he clearly had full access to the computer contents at that time.
This hard drive resides with the computer at all times.
My daughter then purchased a second external hard drive which she uses to make Time Machine backups (of computer and photo hard drive hopefully). This backup hard drive is kept offsite.
Sorry to mislead you. But I guess nothing is different ie he cannot access her computer over the network, but he already has had the opportunity to copy the entire contents of her computer.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries.

The password isn't carried to the hard drives, as they can be used with any computer. If he moved the photos to the external, then she most likely left her Mac unattended and logged into her account.

She can be safer by not leaving it logged in when unattended, having it lock and require a password after so many minutes or when the screensaver comes on, disable automatic login when restarted or powered on, etc.

C