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.
  • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    7·
    3 hours ago

    “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 said that they have given the providers time to fix the issues. Now highlight the ones that did it the best… >_>

    • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 hours ago

      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several vendors and chose to spend their time attacking ones that are opaque about their security stance and used outdated encryption or bad implementations of E2E encryption.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.

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        3 hours ago

        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.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        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.