Every time we make technology more convenient, we often chip away at its security. In modern digital ecosystems, convenience is frequently prioritized over security, especially in consumer-facing tools. This blog focuses on one such tool i.e. the Password Manager, which enhances convenience but often does so at the expense of reducing overall security.
Problem: While password managers promise frictionless access, they also introduce systemic risks that are frequently underestimated. It is a fact that they offer convenience features like auto-generating strong and unique passwords, centralized storage, auto-fill and auto-login, and cross-device sync. While these features improve security hygiene, they also create a high-value target and a single point of failure. Most password managers rely on a master password or biometric unlock. If this is compromised via phishing, keylogging, or device-level malware, the attacker gains access to all stored credentials. Most password managers sync vaults across devices using cloud infrastructure. While encrypted, these vaults are still susceptible to credential stuffing attacks, cloud misconfigurations, API abuse, or token hijacking. Additionally, auto-fill features embedded in browsers can be exploited via malicious iframe, form injection, or XSS. Last but not least, if a device is compromised, such as a rooted Android, jailbroken iPhone, or malware-infected PC, the password manager’s vault may be decrypted locally or intercepted during use. There has been an increase in compromises involving popular password managers recently (see links at end), and it is only a matter of time before this becomes an everyday occurrence, much like the frequent data breaches we are all painfully aware of.
Solution: Security and convenience have an inverse relationship where increasing one decreases the other and vice versa, so how do you balance these? Here is a secure hardened approach and an alternative approach to leverage convenience without risking security. For the secure hardened approach, use a password manager (example: Dashlane) that supports hardware keys like YubiKeys instead of a master password for vault encryption, as they are resistant to remote compromise and phishing. Alternatively, segment your credential storage into two groups such as high-risk (i.e. financial and banking websites, key service providers like Google, Microsoft, and Apple), and low-risk (i.e. rest of the accounts). Store the high-risk credentials in offline encrypted containers like VeraCrypt or file-based encryption using tools like GPG or openssl and completely avoid cloud sync. For the low-risk category, use a good password manager for convenience. Personally, I use a combination of VeraCrypt and GPG-based Pass for my high-risk category. If you are an advanced user, I have several convenient wrapper scripts that I wrote for VeraCrypt and GPG or openssl, which I use frequently and that work on macOS, Linux, or WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). You can find them on my GitHub at the links below and are welcome to use them.
- https://github.com/aselvan/scripts/blob/master/security/veracrypt.sh
- https://github.com/aselvan/scripts/blob/master/security/secret.sh
- https://github.com/aselvan/scripts/blob/master/security/mypass.sh
As a final thought, treat a password manager as a convenience tool, not a security guarantee.
Links to password manager compromise incidents:
- https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/cyberattackers-target-lastpass-password-managers
- https://securityscorecard.com/blog/what-did-the-lastpass-breach-reveal-about-password-manager-security/
- https://www.cloaked.com/post/the-top-3-worst-password-manager-breaches-and-security-issues-to-date
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