Mysterious guest user (Mac)

September 18, 2015 5:46 PM

I recently noticed that there's a guest user profile on my mac laptop. I got the laptop a few months ago and never enabled the guest user profile. No one else lives in my home or has access to my computer.

Out of curiosity I clicked on the guest user icon and got a message saying that it would be restarted in safe "Safari-only" mode. That seems odd, I had a guest user profile before and don't recall it saying that.

Is it possible that that guest user profile was somehow automatically added as part of an update or something? Or should I consider the possibility of a security issue? If there's an issue, how do I go about investigating / addressing it?

Degree of difficulty: I am very lazy and not a super-user at all, but I can generally manage laptop issues by googling and following the most reputable-seeming instructions.

posted by bunderful to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

OR does it come standard and was there all along and I just didn't notice it
posted by bunderful at 5:49 PM on September 18, 2015

Looks like it's related to the update as part of the "find my mac" initiative - thieves log in (at their crime den or wherever) on the guest account and the computer relays the IP.

More info here
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 5:50 PM on September 18, 2015

Yeah, guest account is also created if you sync to iCloud. You can google how to turn it off, but I'm super paranoid, and I don't worry about it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:52 PM on September 18, 2015

Thank you both, my mind is now at ease!
posted by bunderful at 6:08 PM on September 18, 2015