First-order effects

• Anyone running macOS below 10.12.2 with FileVault 2 enabled loses the core guarantee of disk encryption against an attacker with brief physical access — updating to 10.12.2 or later becomes the only fix.
• Apple faces another credibility hit on its security messaging, since the flaw targets the flagship feature marketed as protecting lost or stolen Macs.

Second-order effects

• The disclosure lands amid a string of Apple authentication failures — versions after 10.12.6 unlocking System Preferences with any admin password, and the High Sierra bug letting root access with an empty password — compounding pressure on Apple to treat lock-screen and credential handling as a single audited surface rather than isolated bugs.
• Because the attack rides the Thunderbolt port itself, scrutiny spreads beyond Macs: researchers later documented an unpatchable Thunderbolt flaw affecting PCs with physical access, pushing PC makers to confront the same port-level exposure.

Third-order effects

• If the pattern holds, high-speed external ports get treated as a permanent attack surface requiring hardware-level defenses, not just OS patches — shifting enterprise buying criteria toward machines whose ports can be locked down or disabled.
• Full-disk encryption gets repositioned from a complete answer to physical theft into one layer among several, with buyers and regulators increasingly expecting vendors to demonstrate resistance to physical-access attacks specifically.