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Yesterday I was studying and writing some texts in german. I closed my MBP and went watch some TV which made me forget about the german keyboard layout.

When I came back, my password wasn't being accepted at all. I double checked both shifts, caps lock, everything. (The keyboard layout wasn't being shown at the top)

I gave up and started looking online on ways to reset my password. I found out that anyone in possession of my Mac is able to easily reset my admin password even without knowing anything about me or my computer.

Is there a way to protect myself from this kind of "attack"?

Reference: Recover Admin password

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FileVault crypts all data on the boot volume. Someone with a physical access to your Mac can boot from the recovery partition but has no easy access to your private data.

The drawback is that even you can't recover your data if you loose your credentials.

Another option is to set a firmware password. This doesn't encrypt the hard drive, but prevents users from booting into a special mode that can be used to reset or bypass a password (typically Single-User, Recovery, or Target Disk mode).

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  • Interesting. I have enabled FileVault and it created a security key so that I can retrieve my credentials if I lose them. It also let me choose to store the key at Apple's so that I can call them and retrieve it in case I lose the key as well. – gibertoni Mar 12 '13 at 17:12
  • Does FileVault protect you from a physical access with the boot DVD and a change of your password? – dan Mar 25 '13 at 21:25
  • @danielAzuelos: Even Apple can't change the password that has been used to crypt your data. – mouviciel Mar 26 '13 at 5:46

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