Ask Slashdot: Should You Use Password Managers?

New submitter informaticsDude writes: What do Slashdot users recommend regarding the use of password managers? The recent election underscored the hackability of many personal accounts. One solution is to use different passwords for every digital experience. But, of course, humans are lousy at remembering large numbers of large random strings. Another solution is to use a password manager. However, password managers have been hacked in the past, in which case you lose everything. How do Slashdot users balance the competing risks? What is a person to do?

Comments

keepass

[Anonymous Coward]

http://keepass.info/

Re:keepass

[sexconker]

I also vote for KeePass. It's very nice and very extensible.

Re:KeePass

[PsychoSlashDot]

"i dont trust the cloud, but use the cloud"

k

You're either being deliberately ignorant, or the point hasn't been made clear to you. I'll try to help.

With cloud-based password managers, your data is at risk. If they are hacked - and because they are online, they are vulnerable to attacks - your data is compromised unless it is always encrypted. In essence, you're trusting that they will never be hacked, and that if they are, they did best-practices to protect your data.

With Keepass, even if the cloud-storage you use is hacked, you know the data isn't accessible because it's strongly encrypted. Because you did it.

So yeah, the original comment makes perfect sense.

Keypass for me

[Snotnose]

Not web nor cloud based. You make a master password, it stores a file on your hard drive containing your encrypted stuff. You can move that file anywhere and, if keypass is installed, get your passwords on that platform.

LastPass

[Mike Van Pelt]

I've been using LastPass for years. I tried pwsafe (nice, but at the time, didn't support Mac well) and KeePass (which I didn't like for reasons that I don't quite recall now; ended up moving back to pwsafe) before I switched to LastPass.

The deciding factors were (1) LastPass Premium works on Android. (And, now, you don't need Premium; the free version also works on Android.) (2) Syncs password changes across all devices, and (3) Professional Paranoid Steve Gibson gave it his seal of approval.

Some of the others also have a way to sync across all devices now, but I haven't come across any compelling reason to switch. Though LetMeIn may be working on that one.

Re:LastPass

[Chewbacon]

It's worth adding that Last Pass information is decrypted on the device you're using it on and not on the server. Just pick a good password for the account.

Re:Should You Use Password Managers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I use KeePass *without* the browser integration extension. I let my browser store passwords for unimportant things like forums but I always manually copy passwords from my KeePass database for things like email, shopping and banking sites.

PasswordSafe

[twitnutttt]

I am surprised no one has endorsed PasswordSafe yet! Written originally by Bruce Schneier, open source, and ported to Android which lets me sync my pwd database files between devices via Dropbox. I've been using it for years and plan to continue.

Since starting to use it on my mobile, I've segregated my database a bit to prevent a total breach in case my phone were compromised. I have my "lower security" internet website passwords that I need on the go in one file. And I have my financial passwords (which also stores account and credit card numbers that I might need in an emergency) in another file. And then on my PC there is a master file that has all these plus a ton of other accounts I've collected over the years but don't see the need to take on the road in my phone. Each database has a different unlock password, and those are all I have to remember.

Re:PasswordSafe

[twitnutttt]

Also DICEWARE!
Any passwords you are remembering or entering manually, use passphrase generators instead of making up some wonky hard to type and remember system for yourself that is orders of magnitude less secure than easy to quickly enter and very secure strings of dictionary words.

Re:PasswordSafe

[twitnutttt]

Having just read through these comments, my forehead hurts from banging it against the wall and I better flush this explanation out a bit more...

First of all, I'm amazed NO ONE mentioned the classic xkcd comic on memorized random password security: https://xkcd.com/936/

Second, forget about it all you people with your **genius** schemes for generating unique 8-11 character passwords. Congratulations, you've just been hacked. Look up rainbow tables, people!

You are all reinventing square and pentagonal wheels here. It's not working against the threat profile you face, and it's a pain in the ass for you compared to the painless solution that is already out there and explained if you just knew about it...

OK, so here is the true situation you face if you actually want to be secure:
1) You have hundreds of passwords to store.
2) Each one better be 25+ characters of RANDOM data. Otherwise, you face a very realistic threat from brute force / rainbow tables cracking you in trivial amounts of time now or in the near future.
3) You better not be reusing any of them anywhere, cause, you know, hacking.
      3a) If you use a standard root and "permute" it, you are relatively safer until one of your sites storing it in cleartext gets revealed, and then guess what, literally *everyone* uses the first character or two of the site name, or one or two letters more than the first characters to permute. So if you are ever an actual individual target as opposed to a mass script kiddie attack, you're toast. I know, and you thought you were so clever!

AND, even if you managed to memorize all this, it's a goddam PAIN IN THE ASS to type these passwords in, especially on phones.

Here is a solution that is 1) easier to remember, 2) faster to access your websites and login, and 3) order of orders of magnitude more secure:

Stesps:
1) Generate a SINGLE 6-7 word diceware PASSPHRASE. https://theintercept.com/2015/...
2) Memorize it. This should take you all of two minutes.
3) Download passwordsafe or keepass or another trusted OFFLINE password manager. I'm not going to press my personal preferences here. But it should have an automatic password generator feature.
4) Lock the password manager with your diceware passphrase and start generating 30+ character random, unique passwords for each site you use.

If you have a good tool (I use passwordsafe), you can store the URL, username, and password and with a combination of 3 hotkeys open any website, and login in under 2 seconds for any of the hundreds of TRULY SECURE passwords you store.

You can sync the encrypted pwd manager file to your mobile and other devices and access from there with equal security.

And a passphrase with all lower case letters to unlock your pwd manager is even faster to type on a computer or phone than a single one of these insecure, short, alpha-symbol-numeric jokes people are advocating the genius of here.

OK. Now you know. So spread the word and forget all this elaborate security theater nonsense.

Re:Use a Local Not a Remot Passwords Manager

[nasch]

(2) If the server or cloud service goes down even temporarily, you are stuck without your passwords.

I think LastPass will still work if the server goes down, you just can't sync your vault; perhaps others work that way too. At the least, a service could be designed that way even if LP isn't.