1 yr. ago • 97%

How do you deal with passwords? Password manager? Txt file? Do you use biometrics on devices that have them?

I was gonna ask about the biometrics part in a separate question, but its both about security, so might as well combine it in one post.

Okay so I don't use password managers. I just try to make easy to remember passwords 3-4 random words + 3-4 random numbers. ~~Online accounts can't be brute forced anyways.~~ Edit: I mean most websites have log in limits don't they? Maybe I've been mistaken?

For offline accounts, I just increase the words and numbers. For mobile I don't use biometrics, although I've been testing whether or not I want a pin + no biometrics or alphanumeric password + biometrics. I just can't decide.

64 comments

I use the password manager Bitwarden, but Proton Pass is looking kinda nice.

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- Same with bitwarden, I recently made my wife change from google because I don't trust how they could be managing that kind of data.
  
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  What benefit could it be to Google for them to have access to your user and passwords?
  
  Genuinely curious, I use bitwarden myself but can't see Google using their password manager for nefarious reasons
  
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- I'm already on Proton's other services, so I'll likely switch to Proton Pass if it looks good
  
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- Whats the reason proton pass is looking better? I just started my switch to bitwarden, I used to use enpass offline on windows.
  
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  I use proton services so it would integrate better for me. Bit warden is objectively better though.
  
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- Same. Works well for me and I've had no issues with the free version.
  
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Open sourced password manager + open source 2fa wherever available. For password managers many will suggest Bitwarden & i recommend that to my family for its ease of use, though I personally use Keepass (because it allows me to store multiple documents & have them readily available offline. Its not as straightforward to set up sync compared to Bitwarden, which does it by default).

I would never allow a browser to store any information such as passwords, credit card info etc

On mobile I use password in conjunction with biometrics. Sensitive apps are only ever stored inside secure folder which has no biometric access & has a different password to main area of phone.

I absolutely refuse to use google/apple/samsung pay.

Please consider password manager, once you wrap your head around not knowing any of your passwords except the strong master password it becomes second nature. Get out of the pen & paper habit!

Top tip. For any new signup, once you've generated a strong password make a note within the password manager of the email address you used to sign up with (yep, get used to using multiple email accounts). When that site inevitability suffers a data breach it makes life easier when they send the change of password verification email

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- Get out of my mind!
  
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I write my passwords down using a diamond-point scriber on a tablet of solid gold, which I keep in a secure location.

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- Sounds good. Since I'm so amazed by your security, I'd like to volunter to act as security for your tablet of solid gold, would you mind telling me the location? 😉
  
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Online accounts can't be bruteforced

I'm sorry, but that's just wrong.

Majority of sites have awful security practices, not to mention massive breaches.

Get yourself either a password manager (Bitwarden is the best), or something like Yubikey + unique sentences.

Biometrics do not provide security, they're purely for convenience.

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I run my own instance of vaultwarden (100% compatible fork of bitwarden) and use the standard bitwarden client on Android and browser plugin in Firefox. My master password is really long and I use 16 character passwords as standard in BW. I have biometric set up for my phone just to make it a bit less hassle.

Edit: and I set up MFA wherever possible with a yubikey

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- Are you a bot?
  
  3
This may be a dumb question and I see here as well as elsewhere that a password manager is the best option. What makes a password manager safer than managing passwords yourself? I see the efficiency and ease of us aspects, but I’m less clear on the security portion. Thank you!

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- There's plenty of vids on youtube that explain this in great detail.
  
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  Thank you!
  
  1
- Basically, they enable you to have a different, randomly generated and very long password for each service with minimal impact to your usability.
  
  Personally I use keepassxc with the accompanying browser addon. When I unlock my PC and need a password, I have to enter my master passwort to unlock the database. Afterwards, until I lock my PC again or manually lock the database, I can click on a single button in my browser window to automatically fill out my login information. I do not know any of my passwords beside the master passwort.
  
  I have yet to need the forget password option after switching to a password manager since I can always look up my passwords.
  
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Keepass xc and optionally syncthing

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Been on bitwarden a few years now. It's great

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I'm using keepass on pc and Keepass2android offline on mobile. Protected only with a big password (you can memorize it ~however long it is, as long as you sit 15mins to learn it and use it from time to time). I try to use long random passwords (made by me). I haven't uploaded my database anywhere online. I might have printed it though.🙃

For only a few logins, I've saved them on my browser.

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I have been a paying costumer for bitwarden for couple years, but now I am planning to switch to proton pass soon. $1 for unlimited email alias is simply too good.

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- Do you know how long this $1 promo will last? I’m unlucky this month and can’t afford it until next month.
  
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  no idea, actually I haven't realized it is a promotion until you mentioned it...
  
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Would strongly recommend a password manager. I use bitwarden, you can use self host it or not. If you don't like bitwarden there are plenty of free options. Random password generation and sync is going to be a better practice than much else I can think of, so I'd encourage you to go for it! 😬

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Permanently Deleted

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Been using passwordstore.org for like 12 years I think

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Bitwarden for my personal stuff, KeePass for work (like to keep everything separated). Biometrics on devices that support it. I used to do what you did, and then Facebook got hacked and all my other online accounts fell like a house of cards, found out when my friend texted me asking WTF was going on and why was I posting links to porn sites everywhere. So, password manager and strong passwords for all the things. MFA is something that needs to become more common as well.

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I used a similar password method myself, but I did find many of my accounts getting hacked still. Unfortunately many online accounts can be brute forced, and using any combination of words and numbers makes for an easy dictionary attack.

I now use a password manager that I trust (1password), and a long hard to remember master password.

I do use biometrics when available, for the ease of use.

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I manage my passwords with Bitwarden and Authy for 2FA. Another good option, is to use KeepasXC with Symcthing to have the passwords both on the pc and smartphone

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Self-hosted bitwarden instance with 2FA enforced through hardware key. pretty nice and relies on having the password and the hardware key.

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I only pay for 2 subscriptions: 1Password for families (and Spotify)

I have 236 logins... No way I'm gonna create secure and memorable passwords for that many sites.

I use 1Password on Linux and Android.

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KeePass, synced to my VPS. The key file on exists on my phone+tablet+laptops. Its biometrically authenticated on the phone+tablet - unfortunately, its just password-protected on the Debian laptop. The VPS is automatically backed-up to a completely different cloud service every other night. In the case of catastrophe on the VPS, there'd be cached copies of the vault on my devices and I can fairly easily retrieve a timestamped copy from the cloud server.

I also use a 2FA autheticator app on the phone+tablet. Its similarly biomentrically authenticated and backed-up to the VPS/Cloud.

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I use Bitwarden and I have 2FA where it’s implemented. Why do you say that online accounts cannot be brute forced?

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- Most online logins have limits. You can't just try a million passwords in a second.
  
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  In theory that is correct. In practice, not always the case. Up until 8 years ago you could brute force iCloud passwords: https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/apple-patches-brute-force-password-cracking-security-hole-in-icloud
  
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  This is true, but if their password database gets compromised and they're using insecure storage then they can brute force all day. There are server farms dedicated to doing just that and the vast majority of users are using simple, easy to guess passwords. The most common password? "password" [source: https://nordpass.com/most-common-passwords-list/]. Yes, we are a stupid species.
  
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  Nobody will try to brute force your account on a login form unless you are a high value target. Databases get leaked and password hashes with them. There are tools like haveibeenpwned which check your email against known database dumps that are available to everyone on the dark web.
  
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Local GPG key pair + https://www.passwordstore.org/ synced peer-to-peer between devices via https://syncthing.net/

So the key is always local but the password database is being synced between devices.

pass on its own is great already (it's basically just GPG encrypted text files with a good CLI frontend) but I make it even greater by using a slightly modified "passmenu" script which utilizes wofi (rofi for wayland) in dmenu mode to show a very fast popup of all your sites you have passwords stored for and by selecting it / pressing enter the pw gets copied into the clipboard.

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- Gpg? I get nervous when people say that instead of a symmetric key system. When a quantum computer powerful enough gets invented, all non-quantum resistant asymmetric encryption systems will be broken. Honestly why not just use AES 256 just in case a quantum computer gets invented?
  
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Lastpass for like 10+ years. I don't know how anyone can have any level of security without a manager. I have hundreds of passwords, all unique, and I never have to remember any of them.

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- Doesn't Lastpass have a data breach every two months or so? I migrated last year after hearing of the second one I knew about
  
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  It hasn't worried me too much but I'll probably switch to Proton Pass soon anyway:
  
  All sensitive customer vault data, other than URLs, file paths to installed LastPass Windows or macOS software, and certain use cases involving email addresses, were encrypted using our Zero knowledge model and can only be decrypted with a unique encryption key derived from each user’s master password. As a reminder, end user master passwords are never known to LastPass and are not stored or maintained by LastPass – therefore, they were not included in the exfiltrated data.
  
  1
- I used LastPass and then they started having data breaches every few months.
  
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This may be a dumb question and I see here as well as elsewhere that a password manager is the best option. What makes a password manager safer than managing passwords yourself? I see the efficiency and ease of us aspects, but I’m less clear on the security portion. Thank you!

1
- The idea is to use a different password in every different place so if some password gets leaked, they will only be able to harm you there.
  
  Imagine, if you use the same password for everything, then site A leaks your password and now the bad people could look you up in many other sites and see if they can do some harm there.
  
  Also not having to remember passwords allow for very obscure passwords very hard to bruteforce.
  
  4
  
  Thank you! I asked the other commenter this question as well, but would it be possible for the password to the manager to be breached?
  
  1
- Several points
  
  They generate strong passwords - completely random with no scheme or method to guess. They are long and use many different characters. These won't be easy to memorize, but that's the point of a password manager, isn't it? Much stronger than "google-monkey123", "lemmy-monkey123" etc.
  
  They generate unique passwords - different passwords for every login. When, inevitably, one website had their database breached and it turns out that they stored the passwords too (you never store the passwords, only a "hash", a scrambled version of it), that password of yours can't be used on other websites. Or any scheme be detected "hey that guy just appends 'monkey123' to the name of the site!" That password was truly unique and is not a danger to your other online accounts.
  
  They protect you from phishing - consider this scenario: you get a message with a link, you click on it and the site asks you to log in, so you type in your login and password, but that was a phishing site, it looked like the real website, but really it wasn't. And now the attacker knows your username and password. A password manager that automatically fills your login details will only do so if the domain name is exactly correct, on a phishing site it will not auto-fill, giving you a moment to stop and think.
  
  4
  
  Thank you! Is it possible for a password manager to be breached?
  
  1
- Several points
  
  They generate strong passwords - completely random with no scheme or method to guess. They are long and use many different characters. These won't be easy to memorize, but that's the point of a password manager, isn't it? Much stronger than "google-monkey123", "lemmy-monkey123" etc.
  
  They generate unique passwords - different passwords for every login. When, inevitably, one website had their database breached and it turns out that they stored the passwords too (you never store the passwords, only a "hash", a scrambled version of it), that password of yours can't be used on other websites. Or any scheme be detected "hey that guy just appends 'monkey123' to the name of the site!"
  
  They protect you from phishing - consider this scenario: you get a message with a link, you click on it and the site asks you to log in, so you type in your login and password, but that was a phishing site, it looked like the real website, but really it wasn't. And now the attacker knows your username and password. A password manager that automatically fills your login details will only do so if the domain name is exactly correct, on a phishing site it will not auto-fill, giving you a moment to stop and think.
  
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Funny because in work I keep passwords in txt file with logins hosts etc. It is against security rules. In my personal pc I'm using password manager because I want to have everything in single place and secured a bit.

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