I rely on Bitwarden (slooowly migrating from… a spreadsheet…) and am thinking of keeping a master backup to be SyncThing-synchronized across all my devices, but I’m not sure of how to secure the SyncThing-synchronized files’ local access if any one of my Windows or Android units got stolen and somehow cracked into or something. I’m curious about how others handle theirs. Thanks in advance for sharing!

      • Also built in TOTP / 2fa is pretty great.

        I can’t wrap my head around how this is a good idea. Isn’t the idea of mfa to protect against password theft? If your second factor is stored with your password, how does that help anything? Honest question, I see this everywhere but can’t figure out why it’s acceptable with security-minded folks

        • Yeah fair question. IMO it def makes things less secure, but it’s a question of how much less?

          As in, if all my passwords are “sexG0d” then 2fa is critically important, but if all my passwords are long and complex and unique then 2fa is still another layer but it’s much less critical.

        • If someone were to pinch a password through a phishing site or a key logger they would still need to unlock your .kbdx file. The way I see it, if an attacker has cracked your database, you already screwed up 20 steps ago. (Sharing your .kbdx, using a weak password for it, not changing your other passwords) I think that 2FA on a different device is too much of a hassle for how much extra security it can bring.

        • Late reply, but for me personally, I started doing it because my Keepass database is already accessed using two factors (password and key file). Therefore, I’d gain very little by keeping the second factor of those sites external - essentially, those second factors are compounded into the second factor for the database.

  • Bitwarden already stores a local copy on all devices you have it installed. Just make sure you load up those devices from time to time… And guess what, you are probaly already doing that with your phone and laptop (which actually contains generally 2 copies, 1 on your actual client and another for the browser extension. Add a third device for good measure and… Oh, you also have a backup on bitwarden.com, this thing literally backups itself everywhere!

  • if any one of my Windows or Android units got stolen and somehow cracked into or something.

    This shouldn’t be a concern if you’re using disk encryption and secure passwords, which is generally the default behaviour on most systems these days.

    On Android, you don’t need to worry about anything as long as you’ve got a pin/password configured, as disk encryption has been enabled by default for like a decade now.

    On Windows, if you’re on the Pro/Enterprise edition, you can use Bitlocker, but if you’re on Home, you can use “device encryption” (which is like a lightweight Bitlocker) - but that requires a TPM chip and your Windows user account linked to a Microsoft account. If that is not an option, you could use VeraCrypt instead, which is an opensource disk encryption tool. Another option, if you’re on a laptop, could be Opal encryption (aka TCG Opal SED), assuming your drive/BIOS supports it.

    TL;DR: Encrypt yo’ shit, and you don’t need to worry about your data if your device gets stolen.

        • What matters is that the backups are done at the appropriate intervals and verified to be readable.

          You can figure out what interval is appropriate. Some people have to make sure every picture is saved, some people are fine losing a month of stuff.

          Verifying the backup is valid equally important. You don’t wanna find out it was misconfigured and didn’t get your user directories when you try to restore. Just open one up and look to see every once in a while.

          At least fifteen years ago you could set up windows backups through the control panel > backup or something menu. Now on 10 it’s settings > updates and security > backups.

          You can click add drive from there and designate a usb or something as your backup drive.

          Then set an alarm to make sure you remember to do it at the designated interval.

          With android the easiest thing is to sync it to a computer that gets backed up.

          You can use cloud services instead of a hard drive too, but often simple and easy to understand is the best place to start.

          Do you know why it’s important to have backups before using full disc encryption?

  • For years I’ve been using KeepassXC on desktop and Keepass2Android on mobile. Rather than sync the kdbx file between my devices, I have each device access it through the network. Either via sftp, smb, or nfs, but regardless I need to connect to my home’s VPN to access it when away from home since I don’t directly expose those things to the outside world.

    I used to also keep a second copy of the website-tied passwords in Firefox Sync, but recently tried migrating that to Proton Pass because I thought the PIN feature might help, then ultimately decided to move away from that too and start using the KeepassXC-Browser plugin instead. I considered Bitwarden too but haven’t tried it out yet, was somewhat deterred by seeing people say its UI seems very outdated.

  • Im not sure if that’s what you mean but I just export the Bitwarden database in an encrypted json and have it backed up in cloud. I’m not sure why you need the backup synced with all devices tho

      • Oh, that changes things. So, Bitwarden can be used basically anywhere, as you said. Just log in and there you are. It’s even a website. They’re servers would have to die for it to be a problem. But that’s not a real problem actually as the app keeps a local copy on the device and every time you open the app, it syncs with their servers and updates the vault (database). So the devices are synced by default really. If you want to back it up anyway, there is a „export vault” button which you can use. If you choose with encryption it’s going to be encrypted with the master password I think :)

        PS Bitwarden (company) stores only the encrypted version on their servers so that’s not an issue either

  •  tiny   ( @tiny@midwest.social ) 
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    57 months ago

    Bitwarden keeps a local copy of the data that can exported if something ever happened to bitwarden. If you want to keep an encrypted backup you can export the CSV and store it on an encrypted drive as a backup but not big worry about syncing it to all devices

  • Bitwarden has an import tool. You should be able to convert your spreadsheet into the format they like and import relatively easily.

    For backups, you can create encrypted backups through bitwarden. So it shouldn’t matter if synching itself is a secure process as what your syncing is already encrypted.

  • I prefer another tactic if I may share:

    • Database in production: let Bitwarden clients sync the native way Bitwarden offers.
    • Database in backup: let a dedicated backup service keep your database save.

    I dont know if this could be done automatic (just backup the production database) or if this has to be done by export (by hand once in a while).

    Doesnt matter from which device the backup originates because the native sync will keep them all the same usually in seconds.

  •  catloaf   ( @catloaf@lemm.ee ) 
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    27 months ago

    I have encryption enabled on my devices. If they get stolen, a casual thief isn’t going to be able to break it. At most they’ll wipe it, but they’ll probably just fence it as-is or for parts.