[HN Gopher] Password managers less secure than promised
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       Password managers less secure than promised
        
       Author : mono-bob
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2026-02-21 21:35 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ethz.ch)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ethz.ch)
        
       | mjamil wrote:
       | Has there been a similar evaluation of 1Password?
        
         | rorylawless wrote:
         | 1Password wrote a response to the paper:
         | https://1password.com/blog/eth-zurich-zero-knowledge-malicio...
        
         | tempay wrote:
         | It seems like 1Password is significantly more secure given the
         | ratio of its market share to the number of articles I've seen
         | like this one.
        
         | kenniskrag wrote:
         | > Much like the other products we analyse, 1Password lacks
         | authentication of public keys. This trivially enables sharing
         | attacks similar to BW09, LP07 and DL02, something that the
         | 1Password whitepaper...
         | 
         | > IMPACT. Complete compromise of vault confidentiality and
         | integrity. The adversary can read and decrypt all vault con-
         | tents encrypted after the attack, including passwords, credit
         | card information, secure notes, and other sensitive data stored
         | in the vault. Similarly, they can inject new items into the
         | vault after the attack. REQUIREMENTS. The client fetches key
         | material from the server, for example due to the user logging
         | in on a new device. If executed on a non-empty vault, the
         | attack results in the client losing access to all items already
         | in their vault, while leaking any new items added to the vault
         | after the attack took place. If the attack is executed at the
         | time of vault creation, the attack is effectively undetectable
         | by the client, since it cannot distinguish between a ciphertext
         | it created and the ciphertext created by the server during the
         | attack. PROPOSED MITIGATION. A straightforward mitigation is to
         | have the client sign vault keys using the RSA private key in
         | the keyset before encrypting them with the RSA public key.
         | Ideally, two different key pairs would be used for...
         | 
         | from the paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/058.pdf
        
         | fragmede wrote:
         | https://x.com/IntCyberDigest/status/2023537803959660972
         | 
         | 1password isn't in the clear either.
        
       | baal80spam wrote:
       | That's why KeePass is still the king. Offline vault > online
       | vault.
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | >cloud-based password managers
       | 
       | The main issue with these managers. I use an encrypted text file
       | and Emacs, nothing on the cloud for me.
        
       | doubled112 wrote:
       | I'm not sure why anybody is surprised. Eventually, everything is
       | proven to be less secure than promised, especially once they are
       | online.
       | 
       | There are certain types of data I prefer to have complete control
       | over. Passwords, no matter how encrypted they claim to be, are
       | top of the list.
        
       | Sytten wrote:
       | We will see when the attacks are public, a lot of the malicious
       | server attacks we have seen in the past were kinda of overblown.
       | Not discounting OP but it is very easy to get into clickbait
       | territory.
        
       | mberger wrote:
       | Save you the click.
       | 
       | The researchers demonstrated 12 attacks on Bitwarden, 7 on
       | LastPass and 6 on Dashlane
        
         | bstsb wrote:
         | a better summary from the site:
         | 
         | > We examine the extent to which security against a fully
         | malicious server holds true for three leading vendors who make
         | the Zero Knowledge Encryption claim: Bitwarden, LastPass and
         | Dashlane [...] The attacks range in severity, from integrity
         | violations of targeted user vaults to the complete compromise
         | of all the vaults associated with an organisation.
        
       | bstsb wrote:
       | caveat not properly addressed in the blog post: all "attacks" are
       | assuming full takeover of web servers, which is certainly a
       | scenario that should be protected against, but isn't really a
       | vulnerability unless chained with something else.
       | 
       | almost all online services would be "vulnerable" in this way -
       | take almost any login system. an RCE on a system hosting a login
       | page would obviously be vulnerable to account takeover
       | 
       | better link here (the technical details): https://zkae.io/
        
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       (page generated 2026-02-21 23:00 UTC)