For several years now the following dialog appears now and then on my 2017 iMac, now running Big Sur:
The key requested (“mgn”) is the SSID of my home WiFi network.
The system.log offers no clue (not sure what I would look for). I’ve never clicked on “Always Allow”, but dismissing the dialog with either “Deny” or “Allow” seems to have no visible effect on the machine.
Any ideas on how I could identify the
SInce “mgn” is the name of your Wi-Fi network, then the key requested is probably containing the password for accessing it. At least that’s the case on my system (looking for a key with the same name as my network).
The fact that the app is not named and a generic icon is presented instead of an app icon tells me that this is probably an app without a UI associated with it.
To be on the safe side, I would perform a Malwarebytes scan, in case there is something malicious requesting access to that key, but my gut feeling is telling me that this is some system service trying to read or update your Wi-Fi password.
You may want to go to the Network system settings page and re-enter your Wi-Fi credentials. That should re-write that keychain entry and update whatever system services use it. I don’t know if that will solve the problem, but it’s worth a try.
You could also try deleting that key from your keychain and then reboot. That should cause macOS to ask you for the password when it next tries to connect to your network, after which it should re-write the key.
Malwarebytes found nothing.
Can you explain the logic behind re-entering the WiFi credentials or deleting the SSID key? I’m not sure I understand how that would either identify the process or stop it from asking for the key.
I’ve run both the Activity Monitor and top on the command line while the dialog box is on the scree and can find no process that might be asking for the SSID Key.
Thanks.
I’m just thinking that there may be a system process somewhere trying to get access. If it is a legitimate system process, then entering the password should notify it about the change, and maybe it will stop trying to read the keychain.
I could, of course, be wrong about that.
