I have the same problem re #131959

Question

What should I do? When I power up, I get the message "Please contact your system administrator. Your Mac is running with non-standard permissions on key directories and your Mac may be insecure. Reference Sophos Knowledge Base Article #131959." What should I do? I have no system administrator and don't see any solution that I can understand in the Knowledge Base #131959. I don't even know what Sophos is. Thanks for your help.

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Rodolfo Rosales · Answer

Here is a simple solution that worked for me [I also found the "Knowledge Base Article #131959" quite useless]. 
 To implement it you will need administrator access; if you are a single user you have it and your password is the one you use when you login. If you never set one up, go to "System Preferences", then accounts, select your account, and then "change password". If you never selected a password, it means it is now empty; so change it to something meaningful. 
 OK, this done, select your main drive [where the operating system resides ... most people leave it at the default "Macintosh HD"] and do a "Get Info" on it from the finder. Go down to the bottom of the Get Info window and check the permissions that show up there. They should read System: Read & Write Wheel: Read only Everyone: Read only 
 Most likely you have the wrong permissions under "Wheel". Change them so they are as above. To do this you will have to first "unlock" the permissions section; click on the lock and enter your password. Then fix the Wheel's permissions. 
 Note: this is what worked for me. Those permissions got screwed when I cloned my drive. In your case something else may have done this ... or your problem may not be the same one I had ... But fixing your main drive permissions, if they are wrong, cannot hurt. 
 
 Hope this helps, and sorry if I over-explained trivial things you already knew.

Rodolfo Rosales · Answer

Please see 
 https://community.sophos.com/products/endpoint-security-control/f/sophos-endpoint-software/109120/i-have-the-same-problem-re-131959/393267#393267 
 where I suggest a fix. OK here it goes again: 
 Here is a simple solution that worked for me [I also found the "Knowledge Base Article #131959" quite useless]. 
 To implement it you will need administrator access; if you are a single user you have it and your password is the one you use when you login. If you never set one up, go to "System Preferences", then accounts, select your account, and then "change password". If you never selected a password, it means it is now empty; so change it to something meaningful. 
 OK, this done, select your main drive [where the operating system resides ... most people leave it at the default "Macintosh HD"] and do a "Get Info" on it from the finder. Go down to the bottom of the Get Info window and check the permissions that show up there. They should read System: Read & Write Wheel: Read only Everyone: Read only 
 Most likely you have the wrong permissions under "Wheel". Change them so they are as above. To do this you will have to first "unlock" the permissions section; click on the lock and enter your password. Then fix the Wheel's permissions. 
 Note: this is what worked for me. Those permissions got screwed when I cloned my drive. In your case something else may have done this ... or your problem may not be the same one I had ... But fixing your main drive permissions, if they are wrong, cannot hurt. 
 
 Hope this helps, and sorry if I over-explained trivial things you already knew.