this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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153
Password managers are less secure than promised (ethz.ch)
submitted 1 day ago by Beep@lemmus.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
71 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
  • Millions of people use password managers. They make accessing online services and bank accounts easy and simplify credit card payments.
  • Many providers promise absolute security – the data is said to be so encrypted that even the providers themselves cannot access it.
  • However, researchers from ETH Zurich have shown that it is possible for hackers to view and even change passwords.
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[–] Kushan@lemmy.world 108 points 1 day ago (3 children)

From the paper itself:

We had a video-conference and numerous email exchanges with Bitwarden. At the time of writing, they are well advanced in deploying mitigations for our attacks: BW01, BW03, BW11, BW12 were addressed, the minimum KDF iteration count for BW07 is now 5000, and their roadmap includes completely removing CBC-only encryption, enforcing per-item keys and changing the vault format for integrity. On 22.12.25 they shared with us a draft for a signed organisation membership scheme, which would resolve BW08 and BW09. At our request, to maintain anonymity, they have not yet credited us publicly for the disclosure, but plan to do so.

I didn't look at the response to other Password managers, but the gist here is that the article is overblowing the paper by quite a bit and the majority of the "issues" discovered are either already fixed, or active design decisions.

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 3 points 15 hours ago

The beauty of open source

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I was also just looking for bitwarden information. Its just the best password manager and has never failed to do its job.

I dont know what they mean with less secure than promised. I didnt expect them to be perfect, and havent read that they promise no security flaws.

[–] ftbd@feddit.org 20 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

They advertise that passwords are only stored on the server in encrypted form, meaning they couldn't read them even if they wanted to (or were forced to by a government agency) and you don't have to trust them not to. This paper shows that several vulnerabilities exist in the protocol which could be exploited by malicious code running on the server (injected by hackers or a government agency), which would then allow an attacker to obtain cleartext-passwords. So you do, in fact, have to trust the servers integrity.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 7 points 20 hours ago

Thank you for taking the time to understand and comment, very valuable.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 6 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

but the gist here is that the article is overblowing the paper by quite a bit and the majority of the "issues" discovered are either already fixed, or active design decisions.

"fixed". only for new and updated passwords

https://lemmy.ml/comment/24008121