Drill out HD? What to do with Dead 2018 MacBook Pro and Data on it

[MallardDuck]

My 2018 MacBook Pro suddenly stopped working and cannot start up. I tried everything to revive it and according to Apple Store people (2 visits) it is most likely the logic board and not worth repairing.

They suggested I recycle it at apple.

My data is still on the hard drive.

My question is:

is it safe handing over my dead laptop with my data on it to apple? or should I find out where the hard drive is and put a drill through it like the old days.

I work in cyber security, and simply put: If it's encrypted with file vault, you're fine to dispose of it. If not, then yes, open up and physically destroy the drive. It really is that simple.

The FUD above about apple building in backdoors is unfounded by any evidence. Full stop. If such evidence were found, it would be the end of Apple as a company, so not only do they have no incentive to do so, they have plenty of incentive not to. Likewise, we have plenty of evidence that they have not and will not build in a backdoor (up to and including threatening to disable services in countries with such regulations.

Short of a backdoor in the code (which again, there is zero evidence for), or a dictionary attack against a weak password, there is no practical way of decrypting that data - even by a nation state.

This is a good reason, by the way, to use a long passphrase instead of password (or worse, passcode) on your devices. It doesn't need to rotate or change unless you have reason to believe it's been compromised. And of course, that's why you should also use a password manager - with a different master passphrase from your machine itself, so there's no password reuse.

 

[BigMcGuire]

If it's encrypted with file vault, you're fine. If not, then yes, open up and physically destroy the drive.

Agreed. If defaults were left on and drive encrypted, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Tdude96]

I'm not someone to take privacy & tech security lightly. For example, I don't participate in IOT. I don't trust that Internet-connected "smart" home devices are in any way secure and I don't have the time or wherewithal to lock down everything they might try connecting to that I don't want. We've seen examples of companies that insist their devices are secure or have encryption and it later turns out that they're leaky. Apple devices aren't like an electronic lock where someone can bypass security by entering *1234# on the keypad.

Apple is one of the few companies I trust - and only to an extent. That's largely because we know they field many thousands of requests for customer information from various governments and they happily and openly (as openly as they're allowed) fork over what data they do have as-requested. But Apple also makes a huge deal out of the privacy and security of their devices. They've openly told governments they cannot open or decrypt devices. If there was so much as a credible hint that Apple was holding back and that they could in fact bypass encryption on their devices, the company would be destroyed in a day. Any security-minded or privacy-minded customers would leave. Corporations would end their purchases of Apple devices. And any governments who hadn't been let in on this secret back door would go apoplectic. Even Apple can't afford that.

Apple also has many employees who work on device security and encryption. If these teams were building back door access, a former employee would have spilled the beans. People risk their livelihoods to tell us that the Dynamic Island will indeed be a pill shape! It's nearly impossible for so many people to be working on device security and not a single one would say something about a secret back door. There would be an Apple version of Snowden. A built-in security flaw, especially one that could be used as casually as for recovering information from devices sent for recycling, could not be contained to just Tim Cook and his PA. Easily hundreds, if not thousands of people would have that knowledge. It'd be impossible to keep quiet.

Additionally, an overwhelming number of external people scrutinize Apple devices for security flaws. The discovery of an Apple-built back door through encryption would almost certainly be noticed. Even if the people discovering such a thing were dark web types, that knowledge would eventually have made its way into the public eye.

Apple is a huge corporation, and they don't have my best interests at heart. Their own profit is all they care about, and that's what I count upon. Their profitability would evaporate instantly if they purposefully built flaws into their encryption. It's in Apple's best interest to ensure their encryption is as perfect as possible. And that allows me to have some measure of trust in them.

 

[Arctic Moose]

The discovery of an Apple-built back door through encryption would almost certainly be noticed. Even if the people discovering such a thing were dark web types, that knowledge would eventually have made its way into the public eye.

The San Bernardino iPhone is always brought up as an example in this context, so just to be entirely clear, the firm that unlocked the phone exploited a vulnerability allowing them unlimited passphrase guessing, without any assistance from Apple. The vulnerability was promptly patched as soon as it became known.

The encryption was defeated using brute force (hence the need for the unlimited number of guesses) which is what the Grayshift GrayKey and Cellebrite UFED tools also rely on.

Basic cybersecurity hygiene (which in this context is a long complex passphrase and timely system patching) will deny all of these methods and tools access to your data.

 

[xraydoc]

My take home after all this: As long as FileVault was turned on, I think there's very, very little chance of someone gaining access to the data.

 

[Sweet_Caroline]

Shoot it

Most any center fire round will do it, including whatever you normally carry

Ok, this sounds like a fun way!

 

[xraydoc]

Shoot it

Most any center fire round will do it, including whatever you normally carry

If someone is going to do this because you're worried about recovering the data on the SSD, make sure you put a round though the NAND chip itself. Shooting a random spot on the motherboard is no different than having the motherboard go bad and then being worried that someone would be able to recover your data.

 

[InvertedGoldfish]

If someone is going to do this because you're worried about recovering the data on the SSD, make sure you put a round though the NAND chip itself. Shooting a random spot on the motherboard is no different than having the motherboard go bad and then being worried that someone would be able to recover your data.

One doesn’t just shoot a random spot, one shoots until the target is fully neutralized 😂

 

[borgward]

Get a Linux DVD and see if it boots to live session. If it does, you have several options.

Use the Linux DVD to wipe the drive and reinstall OSX ?? over the Internet.

Or install and run Linux. I suggest Linux Mint as easy to deal with for beginner.