Introduction

Credential access involves retrieving password hashes, stored secrets, or other authentication material from a macOS system. Modern macOS systems employ strong protections, such as secure token encryption and FileVault, making direct password or hash retrieval challenging without elevated privileges or the proper decryption keys.

Privilege Level: Administrative or root access is generally required for credential dumping. This is typically accomplished by having full sudo access, or by being part of the admin group on the host.

In macOS, “Role accounts” are special system accounts primarily used by the operating system and certain applications to perform specific background tasks or manage services. These accounts are generally not intended for interactive login by users and are managed by the system itself. You will see these accounts in the following commands, and all "Role" accounts will begin with an underscore (i.e., _sshd or _www)