Use the “passwords” feature to check if one of yours is compromised. If it shows up, never ever reuse those credentials. They’ll be baked into thousands of botnets etc. and be forevermore part of automated break-in attempts until one randomly succeeds.
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Proud that my only pwned password is three decades old.
Is there any info regarding how old this data is?
Protip for the room: Use a password manager with a unique password for every service. Then when one leaks, it only affects that singular service, not large swaths of your digital life.
And when that password manager gets cracked?
Also 2FA. You’ll still want to change passwords but it buys you time.
And an email alias.
Catch-all address 😎
I use either, depending on the application.
Don’t forget unique email addresses. I’ve had two spam emails in the last 6 months, I could trace them to exactly which company I gave that email address to (one data breach, one I’m pretty sure was the company selling my data). I can block those addresses and move on with my life.
My old email address from before I started doing this still receives 10+ spam emails a day.
I’ve started using {emailaddress}+{sitename}@gmail.com i.e. [email protected]
That way I can at least see who sold my info. I wish I would have started doing this long ago though. Some sites dont let you use the plus symbol even though it’s valid though
This trick is common enough and trivial to reverse engineer. I can just purge my billion-email-address hacked list of all characters between a + and an @ and have a clean list that untraceable with your system.
Right? Has this ever worked for anyone? I’ve never bothered because of how easy it is for spammers to bypass.
Spammers go for the easiest targets. If you do stuff like this, they might redesign their system to make it LESS likely to send to you. Keep in mind theyre targetting the elederly, mentally handicapped, and the emotionally desperate. They specifically DO NOT want to target the educated, technologically literate, and those that will waste their time. By attempting to technologically limit them from their scams, you make it more difficult for them to target you and it makes it obvious theyre not worth your time.
Its not about making yourself scam proof, its about making yourself an unappealing target.
(This all applies to scam emails, dunno if it has any effect if the goal is phishing but i would imagine so. If they can phish 5 people in the time it takes to phish you, youre no longer their target.)
Edit: this is why scam emails look obviously scammy, with misspelled words and grammarical errors. Its not a mistake, its an attempt to preemptively weed out people who want to waste their time
Which one works on all browsers including mobile safari and mobile Firefox?
For mobile safari Bitwarden (and I think a number of others, but Bitwarden’s the only one I can speak to) ties into Apple’s password management system for autofill and password generation. Still have to use the app or webpage (either Bitwarden’s official site or self-hosted vaultwarden) for more in depth management.
For mobile Firefox, on iOS it’s the same as Safari. On Android you can either use the Bitwarden add-on or use it with the app and Android’s built-in password management system just like on iOS.
Since you mentioned “all browsers” for chrome/chromium based browsers there is also on add-on for both mobile and desktop. For Internet Explorer and pre-chrome Edge I don’t believe there’s an add-on but it can still work, it’ll just be more of a pain since you autofill either won’t work or will be spotty. You’ll probably be relying on the standalone desktop app.
On MacOS it integrates with Apple’s password management, so no need for an add-on on desktop safari.
For other browsers, you’ll probably have to use the desktop app and manually copy/paste just like for IE.
I also remember seeing some third-party integration for the windows terminal app and various Linux terminals, but I can’t really speak to their quality or functionality since I haven’t used them. But that would probably cover your needs for terminal based browsers like Lynx.
Thank you! You may have finally convinced me to go this directions
I assume Firefox desktop is also supported on Windows and Mac?
There’s an add-on for the browser for both, but on Mac, the desktop app is what integrates with the system wide password manager. I don’t know if desktop Firefox is integrated into that, so you may need both the add-on and desktop app to get the same systemwide functionality.
On Windows it’s worth having both the browser add-on and desktop app installed as well, since the browser add-on only works in browser but the desktop app, while somewhat hit or miss whether or not it works with any specific application, is supposed to provide autofill/generation capabilities anywhere you have username/password field.
Bitwarden has been good for me, but I actually don’t know about safari…
It works with Safari. I use both Bitwarden and mobile/desktop Safari.
Thank you for actually answering the question.
On mobile, Bitwarden is an app that fills login/password info into your browser.
So you have to switch over to it every time you need a password?
No. When you click into a password field it puts a password field above your keyboard like word suggestions.
It is not seamless, but it is not a pain in the ass. If you have ever used the keychain or passwords app from Apple it works like that.
Heard great things about bitwarden. I’ve personally been using 1Password for over a decade.
I’ve heard great things about Bitwarden, Vaultwarden, 1Password and Keepass, although the latter may fall out of preference rapidly. Some also recommend the Apple Cloud key storage. Call me a stickler but I haven’t trusted Apple security since the Fappening, even if it was the victims’ fault for not using 2FA
Keepass does a pretty decent job. I have keepassXC on my Windows, Debian and Android devices. On Android it’s integrated into the phone(and the autofill service if actual 2fa isn’t supported on the app) so it works on every application. With IOS though I know they can be a stickler on anything remotely technical so I’m not sure if something similar exists with it. I also use syncthing as the service to make sure the same copy of the database is on each device to prevent having to use a password manager that requires a subscription for a cloud service, this also minimizes my risk factor of a cloud service being compromised.
I’m a big fan of the Keep It Simple (KISS) approach, and went with Password Safe. Works on Linux, Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android. It’s big thing is it just makes an encrypted password file which then you can sync between devices however you like (Box, Dropbox, etc)
Which one works on all browsers including mobile safari and mobile Firefox?
It has an auto-type and copy feature, so no need for browser support. Though, the main criticism of this offering is if you want a ton of features and don’t care about KISS.
Something to keep in mind about not using browser integrations is that you can fall victim to simple keyloggers and clipboard stealers. But using an extension can also be a weakpoint if it autopopulates incorrectly or on a compromised site; but that’s far less common.
But, dear readers, don’t let that dissuade you: even a text file in a veracrypt volume is better than “PurpleElephant1994”
In theory auto-population is way more likely to save you from getting scammed because it won’t do it for a fake site, as the URL doesn’t match. In practice though most people are just going to be annoyed it didn’t work and do it manually anyway before they realize why it didn’t work.
One second, let me just
PurpleElephant1994!
I would dare say PurpleElephant1994 is already much better than most passwords people have been willingly tell me.
I recently found out a family member’s passwords are things like “1100011”, “1111000” and similar variations. It’s like they’re already using binary to give a helping boost to brute-forcing bots.
Autopopulate is probably less likely to mistake I and l or O and 0 in a fake url though.
Keychain should work in both now. (iCloud passwords)
Yes and no; they have their own issues:
https://cybersecuritynews.com/hackers-weaponize-keepass-password-manager/
I assure you, the rare security issues for password managers are far preferable to managing compromises every couple weeks.
I’ve only really been in one breach. This one is actually a breach of a “security firm” (incompetent idiots) who aggregated login data from the dark web themselves, essentially doing the blackhats’ work for them.
This is also EXACTLY why requiring online interactions to be verified with government ID is a terrible idea. Hackers will similarly be able to gain all possible wanted data in a single location. It’s simply too tempting of a target not to shoot for.
Lucky you, I’ve been in at least 21 confirmed breaches so far.
Which I don’t really care about, as I’ve been using unique passwords and a manager for well over two decades now. 178 of them, currently. …half to websites that probably died a decade ago.One of my breaches was just Google Chrome (back when I used it) logging me entering my password in a self-hosted local web app via https but with no cert… Google. My breach was Google.
You’ve only been in one breach that you know about so far!
I currently have 110 unique user+password combos. I wouldn’t want to change all those even once, if I were breached and had used similar credentials everywhere.
Bitwarden keeps them well managed, synced between devices, and allows me to check the whole database for matches/breaches via haveibeenpwned integration. Plus because I prefer to keep things in-house as much as possible, I even self-host the server with vaultwarden walled off behind my own vpn, instead of using the public servers. (this also means it’s free, instead of a paid service)
For everyone else reading, bitwarden is an open source free password manager. The pro features are less password related and more about sharing access, file storage, and 2fa authenticator integration
Fair point.
The self-hosting part was mostly about total control over my own systems and less about the paid features. It’s very much not necessary.
As far as pro features go, It was the TOTP authenticator integration that was kind of important to me. ~20% of my accounts have TOTP 2fa, and bitwardens clients will automatically copy the latest 2fa code into the clipboard when filling a password.
Bitwarden will even tell you if a saved account could have 2fa (the service offers it), but it’s not setup/saved in bitwarden atm.
That’s fair. I use Aegis for OTP, but more frequently I get services pining at me to make a passkey, which Bitwarden also handles.
Don’t download shit from random websites… make sure its from legit places…
legit places…
My university, 23andMe, Transunion, Equifax, CapitalOne, United Healthcare…
You shouldn’t download KeePass from any of those.
Legit means the keepass website… those are not legit places to download the password manager
Yeah UHC sold my data as soon as I was put under their coverage. Now I get so many phishing emails pretending to be from UHC.
These kinds of breaches are at the site level. Not much you can do as a regular user if the company doesn’t hash or salt their passwords, for example.
I believe they are replying to the article you posted in regards to the download from legit sites comment, not the fact that the sites have shit web practices (which while correct is a different thing).
To the people who didn’t read the article posted in the comment prior, basically the software installed wasn’t the legitimate software, it was a modified software that was a trojan that was forwarding passwords stored in the keepass database to a home server.
That’s not something that the sites are going wrong, nor is it the password managers fault. That’s fully the users fault for downloading a trojan.
Not from what the article says
involves compromised download links and trojanized versions of the legitimate KeePass application that appear identical to the authentic software on the surface, while harboring dangerous capabilities beneath.
Oh, so don’t use unique passwords? Sure buddy.
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A password manager is still a good idea, but you have to not use a hacked one. So only download from official sites and repositories. Run everything you download through VirusTotal and your machine’s antivirus if you have one. If it’s a Windows installer check it is properly signed (Windows should warn you if not). Otherwise (or in addition) check installer signatures with GPG. If there’s no signature, check the SHA256 OR SHA512 hash against the one published on the official site. Never follow a link in an email, but always go directly to the official website instead. Be especially careful with these precautions when downloading something critical like a password manager.
Doing these things will at least reduce your risk of installing compromised software.
Stuffing? Just in time for the holiday season!
moans “stuff me santa”
Santa: “we are skipping that house”
This is the type of unhinged shit I signed up for!
The thing about this one is no one seems sure of the source (it appears to be from multiple sources, including infostealer malware and phishing attacks), so you don’t know which passwords to change. To be safe you’d have to do all of them.
Some password managers (e.g. Bitwarden) offer an automatic check for whether your actual passwords have been seen in these hack databases, which is a bit more practical than changing hundreds of passwords just in case.
And of course don’t reuse passwords. If you have access to an email masking service you can not only use a different password for every site, but also a different email address. Then hackers can’t even easily connect that it’s your account on different sites.
How do they do that without sending your actual passwords somewhere off your device, or downloading the full list of hacked passwords?
They probably hash the list of hacked passwords the same way your passwords get hashed and check for matches.
Interesting, thanks!
Yeah gotta make sure you never use the same password in multiple places, use a password manager.
Oh no, some Russian troll farm now knows my favorite color.
