Password managers less secure than promised
ethz.ch
Researchers from ETH Zurich have discovered serious security vulnerabilities in three popular, cloud-based password managers. During testing, they were able to view and even make changes to stored passwords.
  • Millions of people use password managers. They make accessing online services and bank accounts easy and simplify credit card payments.
  • Many providers promise absolute security – the data is said to be so encrypted that even the providers themselves cannot access it.
  • However, researchers from ETH Zurich have shown that it is possible for hackers to view and even change passwords.
  • felbane@lemmy.worldEnglish
    991·
    1 day ago

    tl;dr:

    1. If the password manager server is hacked and compromised, then syncing your passwords with the compromised server will lead to compromised passwords (duh)
    2. None of the providers tested have (or have had in the past) compromised servers.

    and an observation or two:

    • Vaultwarden is free, self-hostable, and doesn’t rely on trust in a third party.
    • Keepass (and its client variants, like KeepassXC which is pretty great) is even more secure because there is no server, just an encrypted file you can store anywhere.
    • patatahooligan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      If the password manager server is hacked and compromised, then syncing your passwords with the compromised server will lead to compromised passwords (duh)

      What do you mean “duh”? The password managers claim that the exact opposite is true.

      Most service providers therefore promote their products with the promise of “zero-knowledge encryption”. This means they assure users that their stored passwords are encrypted and even the providers themselves have “zero knowledge” of them and no access to what has been stored. “The promise is that even if someone is able to access the server, this does not pose a security risk to customers because the data is encrypted and therefore unreadable. We have now shown that this is not the case”, explains Matilda Backendal.

      This would be true for a properly implemented end-to-end encryption scheme.

    • iglou@programming.devEnglish
      11·
      2 hours ago

      If the password manager server is hacked and compromised, then syncing your passwords with the compromised server will lead to compromised passwords (duh)

      No, not “duh”. The right way to do this is client-side encryption/decryption. The server then does not at any moment know anything about your passwords.

    • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
      523·
      1 day ago

      Keepass (and its client variants, like KeepassXC which is pretty great) is even more secure because there is no server, just an encrypted file you can store anywhere.

      And simultaneously less secure because it’s up to you to handle keeping your vault synced between various devices and most people are significantly worse at keeping systems secure than the professionals at the password managers.

      Self hosting a server of some kind or using something like Keepass on a single device (with offline backups) is the most secure option, but as usual with security doing so trades significant convenience for security. For most people who are uninterested in making sure their servers are kept up to date week to week letting professionals handle it is the better option.

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        16 hours ago

        I store my keypass database on several flash drives in different physical locations and update them several times per year to make sure that even if I do lose the copy I have, the versions on the flash drives, not at my physical location, are decently up to date, and so if I do lose any of the password data, it will be only for a couple of months worth if that.

        If I add things that are extremely important, such as a new mortgage provider, or some sort of financial data into my keypass database, then I do an unscheduled immediate update to all of my flash drives in different physical locations to make sure that they all have that, but if it’s just a social media account, and I was to lose access to it, and not have the password for it, then… I wouldn’t be too upset about it.

        In the absolute worst possible case, I stand to lose 3 months worth of data. It’s not often that I have to tweak stuff in my password manager, so that would be very few changes.

      • felbane@lemmy.worldEnglish
        121·
        1 day ago

        Sure, but at the end of the day even if you don’t update your vaultwarden server or you rely on an insecure storage sync system like dropbox, your actual vault is encrypted with a key that only you know. Even if your server is hacked or the kdbx is leaked, your passwords are safe until someone breaks AES.

        Contrast that with hosted services, who could very easily attach their own keys to your encryption key (whether now or in the future at the behest of the state) and you’d be none the wiser. E2EE doesn’t matter much when the other end is controlled by someone else.

        I’m not disagreeing that most people just want something to work without thinking about, and for that reason I’m glad that services like bitwarden and lastpass and protonpass exist. My intent was not FUD, just shining a light on the fact that keeping your passwords secure does not require trusting a company.

        • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          43·
          23 hours ago

          Sure, but at the end of the day even if you don’t update your vaultwarden server or you rely on an insecure storage sync system like dropbox, your actual vault is encrypted with a key that only you know. Even if your server is hacked or the kdbx is leaked, your passwords are safe until someone breaks AES.

          not really the case: https://lemmy.ml/comment/24008121

          Contrast that with hosted services, who could very easily attach their own keys to your encryption key

          how would official Bitwarden be able to accomplish that? apart from this vulnerability, they can’t use their servers to add their own keys.

      • FauxLiving@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        18 hours ago

        And simultaneously less secure because it’s up to you to handle keeping your vault synced between various devices and most people are significantly worse at keeping systems secure than the professionals at the password managers.

        It is not less secure.

        If the Bitwarden servers are compromised (either by hacking or by being forced to by the government of the country where they are hosted) then code could be run which would allow the attacker to receive your plaintext password and that is used to decrypt your data.

        If a user is so horrible at syncing that they accidentally synced their database file to a public Twitter post, it is still protected by AES-256 which can’t be broken by a simple subpoena.

        In either case, syncthing is pretty simple to use and is the common recommendation for the kind of small personal file sync that you need here. It also adds an additional security layer, on top of the unbreakable AES-256 encryption, to the whole setup.

    • 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      17 hours ago

      These attacks can happen through server impersonation as well. The actual cloud servers need not be compromised, just the user’s browser has to be. This attack can then leak passwords and allow malicious parties to even gain access on the actual cloud servers apparently.