This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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.
Apparently my email was included in this breach, but my none of the passwords I used with it (before I started using randomly generated ones).
For me, if this happens, it has no impact since almost every page i sign up to has a unique password. The most important ones has mfa as well.
Use a password manager. Simple.
Right answer. In fact, the only viable answer.
I think its almost a crime that browsers havent evolved to make users generate unique, secure passwords by default. Its just another huge sign that these browser companies dont care about security or privacy, despite their marketing departement rabbling those words.
I dont think there has been any evolution at all in this area. Browsers can save passwords but they dont help the user generate secure, unique ones, and dont encourage users to have separate accounts. Instead the web is trying to make users use something like Google or Facebook logins, so they are completely dependent on those tech companies.
You can right click any password field in Chrome and the first option is "generate random password".
2 Issues are the they (1) it is unreadable by humans instead of being a passphrase, and (2) The generator does not read any rules off the page so you might have to add a special character.
But the functionality has existed for over a decade
@Rooster326 @1984 it also asks if you would like to generate a secure password, rather than it just being on right-click, in most "new password" fields.
Google password manager also warns you if you have duplicated passwords saved in it and prompts you to create new, unique ones.
I don't like Google but they do ok with password management I think.
Firefox generates random passwords for you by default. You have to disable it in the settings if you want to use another password manager besides Firefox's built in one.
Comprised of email addresses and passwords from previous data breaches,
So these are previously “hacked” data, and now the aggregator has been hacked?
As someone who consults in the IT Security space, It's bad out there. Contractors and BYOD companies are downright sheepish in asking their outsourced employees to do anything security-related to their devices. The biggest attack vector is allowed unfettered remote access (and therefore the whole company and any bad actors are also granted unfettered remote access)
I still can't get over how quickly companies-at-large have abandoned VPN Servers (removing network trust from the list of options as well)
I'm down to managed browsers via IdP, and I just can't wait for the objections to that as well. People out here offering their faces to leopards. Certificate-based MFA on all the things IMO - passwords shouldnt matter (but six digit MFA codes aren't immune to fake landing pages and siphoned MFA tokens that don't expire)
Let's make a master list of all the emails leaked with their passwords, what could go wrong?
That’s not how it works
It's exactly how it worked. A company called synthient made a master list with all the leaked emails + all leaked passwords. Then they were hacked and it leaked
Synthient wasn’t hacked, as a security company, they aggregated tons of stealer logs dumped to social media, Telegram, etc.
They found 8% of the data collected was not in the HIBP database, confirmed with some of the legitimate owners that the data was real.
They then took that research and shared it with HIBP which is the correct thing to do.
I was also thrown off by the title they gave it when I first saw it, a security company being hacked would be a terrible look. but they explain it in the article. Should probably have named it “list aggregation” or something.
so why hibp calls them data breach??? Ultra misleading, almost defamation, everyone including me only reads the headlines
Someone should make a list of all the leaked credentials that got leaked.
But then nothing has changed if they were just collating what was already leaked.
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.
I was thinking about this earlier. The password manager browser plugin I use (Proton Pass) defaults to staying unlocked for the entire browser session. If someone physically gained access to my PC while my password manager was unlocked, they'd be able to access absolutely every password I have. I changed the behavior to auto-lock and ask for a 6-digit PIN, but I'm guessing it wouldn't take an impractical amount of time to brute-force a 6-digit PIN.
Before I started use a password manager, I'd use maybe 3-4 passwords for different "risks," (bank, email, shopping, stupid shit that made me sign up, etc). Not really sure if a password manager is better (guess it depends on the "threat" you're worried about).
Edit: Also on my phone, it just unlocks with a fingerprint, and I think law enforcement are allowed to force you to biometrically unlock stuff (or can unlock with fingerprints they have on file).
If someone can gain physical access to your PC you are done anyway, he van simply copy the file or do whatwver he want
Yes, it is better. The likelihood that someone will physically access your device is incredibly low, the likelihood that one of the services in your bucket gets leaked and jeopardizes your other accounts is way higher.
I set mine to require my password after a period of time on certain devices (the ones I'm likely to lose), and all of them require it when restarting the browser.
it just unlocks with a fingerprint, and I think law enforcement are allowed to force you to biometrically unlock stuff
True, but it's also highly unlikely that LE will steal your passwords.
My phone requires a PIN after X hours or after a few failed fingerprint attempts, and it's easy to fail without being sus. In my country, I cannot be forced to reveal a PIN. If I travel to a sketchy country or something, i switch it to a password unlock.
I use a "password pattern", rather than remembering all the passwords, I just remember a rule I have for how passwords are done, there are some numbers and letters that change depending on what the service is so every password is unique and I can easily remember all of them as long as I remember the rules I put in place
So when someone figures out your rule he has all the passwords
That is assuming that someone will sit there and try to decrypt password rules for that specific person. Chances of that happening are basically 0, unless they are some sort of a high interest person.
If there's a leak with multiple services, it's possible some script kiddie will flag it as having a pattern. I'm guessing the rule is simple enough that an unsophisticated attacker could figure it out with several examples.
It's way better than reusing passwords, but I don't think it's better than a password manager, and it takes way more effort esp given all the various password rules companies have (no special characters, must have special character, special character must be one of...). If you're paranoid, use something like keypassxc that's just a file.
figure out the rule
figure out the services
figure out the usernames
What's more likely, a password manager gets a breach or someone targets only me and manages to find out multiple passwords across multiple services and cross compares them works out what the random numbers and letters mean...
I don't know your rule, but when I hear this, usually it includes the name of the service or something, so a script kiddie armed with a levenstein distance algo could probably detect it.
That said, the "safer than the person next to you" rule applies here. You're probably far enough down that list to not matter.
As for password manager breaches, the impact really depends on what data the password manager stores. If all decryption is done client-side and the server never gets the password, an attacker would need to break your password regardless. That's how Bitwarden works, so the only things a breach could reveal are my email, encrypted data, and any extra info I provided, like payment info. The most likely attack would need to compromise one of the clients. That's possible, but requires a bit more effort than a database dump.
No you are right, your method is stronger than using a password manager hahaha of course there will never be a targeted attack or anything like it
Also, length is most of what matters. A full length sentence in lowercase with easy to type finger/key flow for pw manager master, and don't know a single other password. Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?
As always, the most secure password is the least convenient and accessible. It's a trade off, but you want fewer dictionary words and patterns overall. Preferably with a physical component for the master password.
Longer is better...giggitty.
You are mostly correct it is length * (possible char values).
See passphrase generator.
https://www.keepersecurity.com/features/passphrase-generator
You are mostly correct it's (possible char values) ^ length.
