Mac OS X lock if wiped (i.e. stolen device)

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Aaroona

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Topic # 151036 11-Aug-2014 19:53

Does anyone know if Mac has a similar lock to the iOS lock, where if you do not disable Find My Mac, that it locks the device until the associated Apple ID has logged in?

I couldn't find much related to this function, without a third party app, but my main concern is Apple provided utilities, as these would be most prevalent.

TIA

hamish225

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Reply # 1107048 12-Aug-2014 13:53

im pretty sure its just like any windows pc, you format the drive and everythings gone, i could be wrong though.

wellygary

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Reply # 1107053 12-Aug-2014 14:05

Apparently you need to turn on " find my mac" in the icloud preferences on said Mac, then you can lock or remote wipe the Device, just that same as an ios device.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2034795/how-to-track-a-lost-computer-with-find-my-mac.html

Behodar

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Reply # 1107074 12-Aug-2014 14:26

hamish225: im pretty sure its just like any windows pc, you format the drive and everythings gone, i could be wrong though.

When remote locked you can only boot from the hard drive and therefore can't reformat (as you can't format the boot drive). It'll also refuse to boot if you swap out the drive.

jnimmo

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Reply # 1107123 12-Aug-2014 15:56

Apple should add a hidden wireless network to their Airport base stations which all Apple devices know how to connect to, and acts as a way of triggering a remote lock/wipe function
That would be kind of cool.. wouldn't need to provide internet access just some sort of functionality to pass on a remote lock message.

But I guess even if you reformatted before the machine lock notification came through, as soon as you connected to the internet after reformatting (assuming the lock had then been triggered) I assume remote lock would take over? Or not

CYaBro

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Reply # 1107124 12-Aug-2014 15:57

And if your Mac has been remotely locked there is no way to bypass this without a special file from Apple themselves.
And they will require proof of ownership etc.
And others have already said, you can't just replace the hard drive as it is locked in the firmware itself.

jnimmo

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Reply # 1107127 12-Aug-2014 16:03

I just came across a thread online where someone was saying if you reset the PRAM it turns off Find my Mac. If that was true, I guess it would mean if a thief reset the PRAM before you managed to remote lock it then the remote lock would be useless.
But I don't know if that is true or not

CYaBro I'm pretty sure you only need to enter your password to unlock the machine after a remote lock.

CYaBro

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Reply # 1107265 12-Aug-2014 20:09

jnimmo: I just came across a thread online where someone was saying if you reset the PRAM it turns off Find my Mac. If that was true, I guess it would mean if a thief reset the PRAM before you managed to remote lock it then the remote lock would be useless.
But I don't know if that is true or not

CYaBro I'm pretty sure you only need to enter your password to unlock the machine after a remote lock.

'

Sorry yes, if you know the password that is of course. :)

We had someone bring in their iMac that their ex had remotely locked.
The ex wouldn't give them the password to unlock it and we tried all the tricks we could find but there was no way to get past it.
On the lock screen there is a key combo you press and it gives you a long checksum, like about 30 characters, which we then gave to Apple, along with proof of ownership, and they sent back an encrypted file to unlock it.
We had to put this file on a specially formatted USB stick and boot the iMac up with it plugged in and it automatically bypassed the lock screen. I think we had to reset the PRAM as well after that to get it to boot correctly.

livisun

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Reply # 1108466 14-Aug-2014 15:33

Yes thats a EFI firmware password, which you can setup in recovery, you can also use file vault to protect your data