this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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No-one should be using any password manager built into any browser, neither Chromium-based nor Firefox-based. Browser password databases are almost trivially easy for malware to harvest.
Go with something external, BitWarden or 1Password, or if you are entirely within the Apple ecosystem their new password system built into iOS 18 is apparently really good.
What makes the built-in database easier to attack than a separate one?
It's protected by the user's login password. If an attacker can steal that or knows it already, the passwords are all there for them to see.
Bitwarden (on the other hand, for example) has 2FA options to unlock the database.
How does this work if accessing Bitwarden via the browser extension? I don't like needing to type my master password in all the time as it's long, so I have the setting turned on that times the vault out periodically, but so it's also unlockable with a pin rather than requiring the master password every time. I understand the pin is shorter, but does the protection of the vault still stand?
That's a good question. I don't actually know the answer to that. I know the passwords are hashed locally when your vault is locked and before being synced, but I'm not sure whether it's in plaintext when it's unlocked or if it uses some kind of on-demand decryption. It's probably in their docs, I should think.