FACEBOOK TESTING 'TRUSTED FRIENDS' PASSWORD UNLOCK FEATURE

Over the coming weeks Facebook will begin testing a 'Trusted Friends' password unlock feature. The feature will allow a user to select between three and five pals that they're confident will help out in dire times. Then, should you lose your password, Facebook can send recovery codes to that gang, and they can hand 'em over to you in order to unlock things. According to Facebook, it's akin to "giving a house key to your friends when you go on vacation."

HACKERS CAN CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD IN LION OS X

Security blog Defense in Depth via CNET has found a glaring security flaw in OS X Lion that enables hackers to change the password of any user on a machine running Lion. “[While] non-root users are unable to access the shadow files directly, Lion actually provides non-root users the ability to still view password hash data,” Patrick Dunstan from Defense in Depth explained in a recent blog post. The result is that anyone could use a simple Python script, created by Dunstan himself, to discover a user’s password. It gets worse. Reportedly, OS X Lion does not require its users to enter a password to change the login credentials of the current user. That means typing the command: “dscl localhost -passwd /Search/Users/Roger” will actually prompt you to set a new password for Roger.

As CNET points out, a hacker could only take advantage of the known bug if he or she has local access to the computer and Directory Service access. CNET suggests disabling automatic log-in, enabling sleep and screensaver passwords and disabling guest accounts as some preventative measures to keep your Mac secure.