- 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.
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Would having a synced Keepass database with a composite key protect against this?
When I made my database I created a composite key file that never goes online. I locally copy it to any device that needs to access the database. The idea was even if the password got compromised you can’t access the database without the key file
What if you have a house fire and lose all devices with the key
What if there’s a nuclear war end the house gets vaporized?
To protect against this scenario I have this small portable computer that I keep in my pocket. They’re quite popular these days.
Many providers promise absolute security
This struck me as wrong, because that would be a technically impossible and liability-inviting thing to promise.
And after checking the homepages of the 3 services they tested, yep, none of them promise “absolute security.”
the paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/058.pdf
With pretty much every major company being hacked at some point, credit card companies being hacked, everyone selling our details and data, doge and palantir. Feels like post it notes under the keyboard isn’t that bad of an idea.
Post its have their problems but at least they can’t be read half a globe away
If someone breaks into my house to read them I have big problems already.
You have no idea how many times I’ve made that exact statement.
“We want our work to help bring about change in this industry,” says Paterson. “The providers of password managers should not make false promises to their customers about security but instead communicate more clearly and precisely what security guarantees their solutions actually offer.”
Great.
Now which password vault was the most cooperative and clear in their security communication and which one wasnt?
The author that they have given the providers time to fix. Now highlight the ones that did it the best… >_>They did gove some advice. They said to go with a vendor that is transparent about problems and reveals the results of their third party security audits. I’m sure if you read between the lines it means they likely reviewed several vendors and chose to spend their time attacking ones that are opaque about their security stance and used outdated encryption or bad implementations of E2E encryption. So all three are likely suspect. Like if 1Password were developed similarly to LastPass wouldn’t they have spent time attacking it?
Edit: https://support.1password.com/security-assessments/
1Password are posting the results of their external pen testing now.
About 1password publishing their pentesting results. Why put it behind a ‘give me your email address’ wall?
That alone is enough for me to instantly disregard them as an option.
Bitwarden did so too.
But IMO your assumption is a bit of interpreting bad/malicious faith into it.
I see it more like they are the more publicly known brands/services that do this and underwent the audit.
I have read the TLDR by the authors (linked a few times in the comments) and the answer by bitwarden.
Bitwarden said the, fixed the issue, are in the progress of doing it or are accepting it as “this is intended/a trade-off”.
What is a bit sad is that they had more vulnerabilities than other vendors. But I trust them more as they are mostly OSS.
Bitwarden have published a blog addressing this audit:
OMFG can people please fucking go away with this stupid “password managers are worthless” bullshit today. They are exactly as secure as promised, unless you went to the obviously shady ones that use web interfaces. People have been saying this for years, if you want security, keep your password manager offline.
So by that logic BitWarden is unsafe?
according to recent findings, it is.
But the findings were patched before it was even published from my understanding?
not all of them, and some changes only apply to new passwords saved: https://lemmy.ml/comment/24008121
Yes, if you arent self hosting the web interface or using the desktop client.
But these issues were patched before even publishing the findings, right?
There is no way to patch the inherent flaw that comes with delivering client software through a web browser. If the entire client is delivered as a web page from a server you dont control, then that server can modify the software however it pleases. Same applies to e2ee encrypted chat clients that run as a web page like element-web (browser based matrix client).
This feels a bit extreme though. Can you even trust anything online at that point? Do you also never leave your home carrying your wallet in case someone might rob you?
Bro i have my bank details, all my private 2FA, work 2FA, health insurance access, my families master passwords, steam access, and more in there. Its literally the most important piece of software that can exist in this day and age. No im not taking chances with that. The only thing you can do with my physical wallet if you rob me is buy something up to 20€ beyond which you need the cards pin. Everything else i can just deactivate by calling the relevant parties.
But on another note, websites have never really been resistant to MITM attacks. So you dont just have to trust the hoster but also everything in between you and them.
I assume you follow proper backup protocol it you are using offline password management.
How do you sync though? You keep one copy on your phone or something, I imagine? What apps and managers are you using?
This comment shows that you know less about computers, than you may think. You can definetly make end to end encryption work using a Website. JavaScript runs client side. So as long as you trust the encryption algorithm (which in elements case you definetly can, because it is OSS), the encryption is safe and your unencrypted data never leaves the device.
The point is you are trusting the JavaScript that the server delivered to you. If the server is compromised, it hands you compromised JavaScript and you’re screwed. It’s the exact same thing as going to evil.com and entering your master password. I think that you inherently understand that evil.com is untrusted. However, if passwordmanager.com is compromised by the same people who own evil.com. there’s really no difference.
I understand, but wouldn’t the same problem occur, if the server for the website you download your software from or the server for your package manager would be compromised? Even if you would buy your software physically on a CD, there would be a chance someone has messed with the content on a CD.
So I don’t really see this as a flaw unique to browsers. Am I wrong?
Interesting paper and I agree with the researchers to consider full server compromise in scope for online password managers. Maybe I missed it, but I’d have liked a section on the response by vendors. Mistakes happen, but the response and actions taken are very important for (continued) trust in a vendor.
Use a offline password manager. Problem solved.
Solves the security issue. Destroys the accessibility part
Just use Syncthing with your trusted host
I just sync it using my Nextcloud instance. No issues.
I use an offline password manager, and sync an encrypted database with nextcloud. It’s convenient enough, and secure enough for me. Easy to sync between my phone, desktop, and laptop. And I only need to remember two passwords, the nextcloud one, and the manager one. I don’t think you can have it more secure and convenient all the same, at least not with current tech.
Many will argue that they need the convenience of an online password manager not knowing that what you stated is the safest form
Everyone using online password manager services deserves everything he gets
Yes, let’s blame the victim and not the data hording mega corps that advertise their crap to collect more data, make big promises, hide the better options, and actively undermine open source in every way they can.
I’m pretty sure the average person hears “open source” and think “oh that’s insecure software made by hackers, I need to only use software from trusted sources”. Using only trusted software is still a good idea, but unfortunately the trusted sources of 2002 have betrayed us.
wahtever i use keepass
Don’t store your stuff in the cloud unless you don’t mind someone else accessing it.
If you store things in the cloud that you don’t want other people to access, you better be encrypting it yourself and only opening it locally.
This has been a cardinal rule since day 1.
I don’t want people to access my files but I wouldn’t really care if they did. I don’t understand people who keep things like compromising photos of themselves online, who’s benefit is that for, and why do you need quick access to your nudies?
If it’s something that you don’t really care about others seeing, that’s a prime candidate for cloud storage and more power to you.
This topic is about password lockers. I’m pretty sure you don’t want some schlub who happens to work at Cloud Password Lockers Inc. to be able to get at your PayPal account.
I pitty the fool that stores anything important on
the cloudsomebody elses computer.i really wasnt expecting a password manager related tech fearmongering on lemmy today
I use local for important stuff (financial) and online ones for things that are not to important.
For people interested there were 3 cloud based password managers tested and this is what they found
The researchers demonstrated 12 attacks on Bitwarden, 7 on LastPass and 6 on Dashlane.
Yes but unfortunately nothing specific about the strength of any particular option.
Is there a reason why these attacks were on cloud based pw managers?
The method, they use, requires a client-server architecture. Hence, they cannot attack a local keepass file even if you sync it to some cloud.
That’s where most of the passwords are
From what I scanned, there was no reason given on why they only attacked cloud based providers.
My guess is that these are paid ones and thus have a ‘market share’, easier to attack etc.
If you attack a ‘keepass’ password the attack vector is more crypto / memory based as far as my limited knowledge goes and not some funky inbetween attack.
Also, if you attack a cloud base provides, you will most likely have multiple victims per breach / exploit, whilst offline are targeted and thus not so interesting in most cases unless we’re talking about a person of interest
they ran the test on those pw managers because they were open source. that allowed the testers to implement a “dummy” provider on their own “compromised server.” so the results of failing the tests are based on the hypothetical situation of “what if bitwarden (or whoever) had an entire server taken over by hackers”. while the possibility of that happening are greater than zero, it would take a lot for someone to completely hijack a server like that
edit to add-- these tests are one of the reasons these pw managers choose to be open source: to allow 3rd party tests like this to find vulnerabilities, so they can be fixed
Oh okay so they probably delivered malicious code to the user entering their passwords… Well even an offline pw manager can be compromised in the code.
What I am wondering myself: Do the different amount of attacks mean the attack surface was greater or had more vulnerabilities or what made them only do 6 on Dashlane vs 12 on Bitwarden?
Unfortunately they don’t explain what the attacks were in the article. Gonna need to find the paper to know.
