A Big Mistake, or How Not to Store Passwords
In this section, we will have a block of articles dedicated to various ways of storing passwords, their pros and cons. Depending on the level of security of the method, we will recommend it to you to some extent, but there is one method that we strongly advise you not to use... but first, a little story from my life.
One of my good friends suspected his significant other of infidelity and, knowing that I have a good understanding of tools for covert monitoring of computers, asked me to install some legal RAT (Remote Access Toolkit) on her Mac.
I refused to install cyber espionage tools on her computer, but I said that I could check the information if she gave me her iPhone or Mac. The very next day, he came to me with her brand new iPhone 8.
I never thought his girlfriend was very smart, but she deleted her browser history as well as messaging apps. The only thing she didn’t know was that deleting history is not enough, and within a minute, my friend not only got a list of dating sites his girlfriend had visited but also the login/password pairs for them.
How? If you use Apple devices with default settings, all your passwords are stored in iCloud, and knowing the password, they can be viewed from any of your devices. For example, on your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Accounts & Passwords > App and Website Passwords. By clicking on any entry, you can see the saved password in plain text. Similar systems exist on Android, Windows, many browsers, password managers, and if you haven’t disabled them, I have bad news for you.
Your passwords are stored by third parties in the cloud. Sharing your passwords with third parties is a very unwise step, but for the sake of objectivity, let’s start with the pros of this method of password storage.
Pros of Storing Passwords in the Cloud
Simple and Convenient
It is indeed convenient. For example, in the case of iCloud, you save a password on your Mac, then, when visiting the same site from your iPhone or iPad, you can easily log in. When changing computers, you just need to log in to your iCloud account – and all your passwords are with you again.
If You Lose Your Device, You Don’t Lose Your Passwords
If your laptop or phone is stolen, you won’t have trouble recovering the lost passwords with them, and this is undoubtedly a plus. All you will need is to log in on a new device.