Alert: OX X Lion update exposes encryption passwords
This, I would have to say, is a pretty basic, and bad, screwup.
“a quality assurance mistake can cause OS X users’ FileVault encryption passwords to be exposed”
“It appears that a debug option was accidentally left enabled in FileVault, resulting in the user’s password being saved in plain text in a log file accessible outside of the encrypted area.
Anyone with access to the disk can read the file containing the password and use it to log into the encrypted area of the disk, rendering the encryption pointless and permitting access to potentially sensitive documents. This could occur through theft, physical access, or a piece of malware that knows where to look.”