macOS26 and watchOS26 security issue

[surfzen21]

I have my watch, now on 26, set up to unlock my MBP.

This has always required the watch to be on my wrist and unlocked.

Today my watch was sitting on a counter not charging. It was about 15 feet away from my MBP.

I opened up the lid on my MBP and it automatically unlocked. I was confused so I went over to my watch and saw the unlock mac screen lit up.

This is a serious security breach. Anyone could have walked over to my MBP and had access to it.

Im not even sure how to report this as an issue because its not on a beta but the official 26 release.

 

[nmt1900]

Feedback Assistant can be used to report it.

P. S. This Lock screen problem is not exactly new thing. When I used 2015 MBP with Monterey then sometimes screen was unlocked after waking up. It happened very rarely and there was no clear way to reproduce it. On my current M3 Air with Sequoia this has not happened even once in over 10 months.

 

[Puonti]

Do you have "Unlock With iPhone" enabled in the Watch app by any chance? It might not be related, but some days ago I was doing something on my iPhone and it told me it had unlocked my Apple Watch... which wasn't being worn at the time.

iPhone unlocks Apple Watch unlocks... Mac?

 

[surfzen21]

Do you have "Unlock With iPhone" enabled in the Watch app by any chance? It might not be related, but some days ago I was doing something on my iPhone and it told me it had unlocked my Apple Watch... which wasn't being worn at the time.

iPhone unlocks Apple Watch unlocks... Mac?

Interesting and I do.

Half the time my watch is unlocked with my iPhone, but I chose to set it up that way.

I don't think my phone was unlocked at the time but I may have just put it down so it's a possibility it was.

I may try and reproduce it just like that. I know if I am not wearing my watch and use my phone, the phone will unlock it but it will only stay unlocked for a few seconds.