It is truly upsetting to see how few people use password managers. I have witnessed people who always use the same password (and even tell me what it is), people who try to login to accounts but constantly can’t remember which credentials they used, people who store all of their passwords on a text file on their desktop, people who use a password manager but store the master password on Discord, entire tech sectors in companies locked to LastPass, and so much more. One person even told me they were upset that websites wouldn’t tell you password requirements after you create your account, and so they screenshot the requirements every time so they could remember which characters to add to their reused password.
Use a password manager. Whatever solution you think you can come up with is most likely not secure. Computers store a lot of temporary files in places you might not even know how to check, so don’t just stick it in a text file. Use a properly made password manager, such as Bitwarden or KeePassXC. They’re not going to steal your passwords. Store your master password in a safe place or use a passphrase that you can remember. Even using your browser’s password storage is better than nothing. Don’t reuse passwords, use long randomly generated ones.
It’s free, it’s convenient, it takes a few minutes to set up, and its a massive boost in security. No needing to remember passwords. No needing to come up with new passwords. No manually typing passwords. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but if even one of you decides to use a password manager after this then it’s an easy win.
Please, don’t wait. If you aren’t using a password manager right now, take a few minutes. You’ll thank yourself later.
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My dad somehow believes that that password managers are very insecure ( he got that from some sort of ‘reputable source’, so me telling him bitwarden is secure doesn’t help) and he just writes down all of his completely randomly generated passwords in a notebook, which always seems really inefficient to me, especially when he writes a character down incorrectly.
My wife does this with index cards. I have to try to figure out what she wrote down (1? l?) and she crosses out an old one and writes the new one in a random spot so I have to study the card to find the live pw.
I have relatives that do this, but they record it accurately and put it in a safe.
Is your dad Ron Swanson? /j
He’s doing something right.
You can’t hack a paper note over the internet.
You can’t grep dead trees, password managers are only as secure as their infrastructure which are constantly being backdoored, socially engineered and poorly administered. Anyone that trusts a simple security solution is a fool.
At least reputable companies do 3rd party audits and I have yet to hear about bitwarden getting pwned.
One of the only possibilities is them and their infrastructure getting ransomed
Honestly this is the part that scares me the most. Well maybe it’s the fact we have multiple plausible scenarios… What happens when you get locked out of bitwarden? I imagine the 256 randomized salted hash passwords will be hard to call, some companies will likely be able to restore your password via phone support. During that time, informed attackers will potentially have the master keys to your entire life. Fighting ai chatbots trying to recall security questions. During that time your phone and Internet service could be shut off, secondary emails changed and validated, money transferred out of bank accounts, stocks and crypto sold. Crowdstrike was a valuable security company.
The FAQ answers the question of getting locked out: https://bitwarden.com/help/forgot-master-password/
TLDR: You are fucked if you lost the recovery codes.
Best case: You do encrypted backups every once in a while
It’s not a hard concept. In almost every well-designed security system, the weakest links are invariably the humans
I mean he’s not wrong about paper being more secure than password manager (provided you have good physical security and trust the people you live with)
Only until he gets a keylogger on his computer
Yes, but this is like replacing the front door of your house with a bank vault door. Yes, it’s more secure, but there is a point of “reasonably secure enough” for most people and at some point, you are just inconveniencing yourself for no tangible gain.
Well yeah I guess that’s true