Hello,
my ex bosses cousin has a degree in computer networking and cybersecurity. I have reason to believe he got access to my MAC and as I had my passwords on my work computer he had my password. How much harm can he do if I change my passwords? My ex boss was a creep and had already admin rights to my work computer.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
What do you mean you had your passwords on your work computer?
As for you ex boss having admin rights to your work computer, that's right. It belongs to the company and everything on it belongs to the company. You should NEVER, EVER store ANYTHING personal on a computer owned by your employer.
If you had a file with passwords for your personal systems and accounts stored on your work computer, you need to change ALL of them. Now.
If your work computer was set up as trusted for 2nd factor authentication or your work email account was set up as trusted, you need to change that on all of your accounts. Now.
What do you mean you had your passwords on your work computer?
As for you ex boss having admin rights to your work computer, that's right. It belongs to the company and everything on it belongs to the company. You should NEVER, EVER store ANYTHING personal on a computer owned by your employer.
If you had a file with passwords for your personal systems and accounts stored on your work computer, you need to change ALL of them. Now.
If your work computer was set up as trusted for 2nd factor authentication or your work email account was set up as trusted, you need to change that on all of your accounts. Now.
Could he have put any malware on it.
Yes.
I believe you are laboring under a number of misconceptions. If you have reason to believe your Mac was physically accessed and used by someone with malicious intent, the only correct way to recover from that intrusion is to completely erase the Mac.
Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support
Follow those instructions. Change all passwords you may have been using with that Mac. You should also assume the criminal (so emphasized because unauthorized use of a computer is considered a criminal act in most jurisdictions) committed other nefarious acts such as modifying your network equipment, assuming it was also within physical reach of such tampering. Installing monitoring devices i.e. "bugs" or covert listening or viewing equipment is also not out of the question for someone you characterized as a "creep" skilled in such matters.
Installing non-Apple "anti-virus" garbage and putting the firewall back on are utterly ineffective and meaningless gestures that will accomplish exactly nothing and / or increase your Mac's exposure to threats.
If you are still with the same company as the ex-boss, inform IT and have them "burn it down" and reinstall a fresh image. (After you have backed up all your files)
MariaGF25 wrote:
I installed anti virus too.
antivirus on a Mac is neither needed nor recommended. the only thing they are good at is consuming system resources and causing major issues within macOS. they are also known to give false alerts where no problem exists to give the user a false sense of security so that they think the software is working. you would do well to uninstall it using the developer's instructions.
If you believe this:
You have reason to believe that the cousin and/or ex-boss entered your home without your permission and tampered with you personal computer without your permission. Because they had physical access to your computer and your house you are concerned they may have implanted spyware on your computer, cameras or other monitoring devices in your house and compromised all of your online passwords
You need to stop using your computer and turn it off immediately. It may contain evidence of the crime, assuming it actually happened. You then need to go directly to the police or contact a lawyer and have them do so on your behalf.
We can't advise you to do anything other than that.
FYI: There is no such thing as unauthorized access by your employer to anything on a computer that is owned by your employer. They own it and everything on it.
MariaGF25 wrote:
Thanks, lesson learnt. I have nothing on my new work computer. I moved jobs. Can I do anything else with my personal MAC. The firewall was disabled, console app was accessed.Key chain was set up. That’s how I knew there was physical access. It was a day he knew I was away from my house. My door was unlocked. I put the firewall back on. Could he have put any malware on it. He had access to my password as it was saved on my Teams account. Same password. All changed now. Some odd stuff in my activity log. I cleared certificates on the key chain. I installed anti virus too. Changed passwords. Anything else I need to do
Why are you leaving your house unlocked and your personal passwords on your work account? Even if you left the door unlocked (stop doing that right now), the perpetrator was still trespassing. Contact the police. Even if they do nothing other than taking a report, you will have started a documentation trail.
Allot. Do what is recommended for scammers, change your passcodes NOW. Your Apple ID and all the others that he has Access to.
all so sign him out of your computer.
So to summarize - and so you can correct me if I get this wrong, because information has been coming in a trickle here:
If this is correct, then - depending on the laws in the country you live in - a number of criminal laws may have been broken, including criminal trespass, burglary, and various computer crimes. The fact your door was unlocked is irrelevant )although police will probably give you a hard time about it)
You may also have (if they did implant spyware or install devices in your home) evidence for a criminal harassment and/or stalking complaint. I don't want to make assumptions, but based on your community username and your characterization of your ex-boss as a "creep", I suspect some inappropriate behaviour at work from this ex-boss?
At a minimum, you need to wipe that Mac and reinstall everything from scratch, and change all your online passwords afterwards (or at least not ever use that computer to access anything until it is wiped once you change passwords, in case of a keylogger being on it). You should also thoroughly sweep your house for anything out of place.
But really, if you think this person was in your house and tampering with anything, you should consider making a criminal complaint to the police.
Please download and run Etrecheck. The free version is sufficient.
Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
Copy the report
and after clicking on the Reply button use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Check Etrecheck's Privacy settings and make sure the checkbox for full disk access before running:
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine if there is any questionable software insrtalled.
Thanks, lesson learnt. I have nothing on my new work computer. I moved jobs. Can I do anything else with my personal MAC. The firewall was disabled, console app was accessed.Key chain was set up. That’s how I knew there was physical access. It was a day he knew I was away from my house. My door was unlocked. I put the firewall back on. Could he have put any malware on it. He had access to my password as it was saved on my Teams account. Same password. All changed now. Some odd stuff in my activity log. I cleared certificates on the key chain. I installed anti virus too. Changed passwords. Anything else I need to do
This is very helpful and makes sense. I suppose I was naive before this. I was not expecting this to happen. Fortunately my work computer now is very secure. I am just weary to use my personal MAC since this happened. I think Apple is secure once nobody has physical access to it. So I will go through the clearing process. Thanks for this information.
I resigned after this happened. I reported unauthorised access to my OneDrive but nothing I could do as that was a work computer. My ex boss brought up FBI and just odd things in our meetings leading up to this. I did not cop what he meant for awhile. I just thought he was odd.
Fortunately my work computer now is very secure. I am just weary to use my personal MAC ..
Just to be clear, how many Macs are we discussing? A work computer and a personal Mac? Two separate devices? Are they both Macs, or is one a Windows PC, or...?
This doesn't detract from any of the replies here, but it may be important. I understand you have a personal Mac, which you own, but it's not clear to me how a work computer (presumably owned by a former employer) relates to your concern. And it's Mac, not MAC. It's just confusing for me to read.
So my work computer was a Windows laptop. He had access to my OneDrive and used screen connect to connect in at times. I resigned from the job so does not have access to my new work computer. My personal computer which he had physical access to is a Mac. So I am just concerned about that one.
How can I tell if my Mac has been hacked?
